


Qué Syrah Syrah

by LoudLucy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Characters doing a lot of drinking, Daisuga if you break out your electron microscope, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, Sommelier AU, Suga and Daichi always having Asahi's back also because OBVIOUSLY, Suga is the king of tough love, Tanaka being an A+ bro because OBVIOUSLY, Wine, Wine AU, tough love, wine tasting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-25 19:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6206899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoudLucy/pseuds/LoudLucy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asahi wants to be a Master Sommelier. It's the highest honor in wine service, and the certification would allow him to live the life he's always envisioned for himself.  Too bad the certification test is notorious for being the world's most difficult.  </p><p>Most people fail their first time taking the exam, and Asahi is no exception, but he has more difficulty than most dusting himself off and getting back on his feet.  Enter Nishinoya, a young man who shares his same dream, and who believes in their goals so fiercely it forces Asahi to embark on a delicious and sensuous journey of viticulture and validation.</p><p>AKA The Wine Tasting AU that literally no one even knew to ask for.<br/><b>NOTE</b> You Do Not Need to Know About Wine to Understand This Fic!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Qué Syrah Syrah

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really excited to share this fic, partly because it has helped me combat some pretty serious writers block and because it involved some really cool research. I love wine, and learning more to write this was a real #blessing.
> 
> The test that Asahi is taking in this fic is entirely real. The Master Sommelier (so-mell-ee-YAY) exam really is one of the most difficult exams in the world, and becoming a Master Sommelier really is one of the pinnacles of working with wine. 
> 
> Also, if any of you start this and say, "who is this chick and why does she actually think you can taste all of this shit in wine?" I highly encourage you to watch the documentary _Somm_. It's about people taking the same test Asahi is taking in this fic, and their talent is absolutely incredible. YouTube a clip if you're curious. They're _insane_.
> 
> Finally, I myself am not any sort of sommelier, so if anyone with real wine knowledge spots an error or misconception, feel free to let me know! For those of you who, like myself, are amateurs at wine but want to learn, I've included a lil glossary in the endnotes. 
> 
> EDIT: A perfect and adorable fanart of this fic now exists! Thanks to [asanoya](http://asanoya.tumblr.com) on tumblr!! Also [HERE'S](http://asanoya.tumblr.com/post/142651715644/pls-read-this-sommelier-asanoya-au-and-cry-w-me) the art!!

The six glasses of wine stood in front of him with all the lethal finality of a firing squad. Azumane Asahi felt his stomach drop, his heart race, and all of the saliva in his mouth dry up in an instant.

“Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Azumane,” one of the suited proctors said from behind one of the glasses of red. His voice had a tone of gentle encouragement, and, despite the fact that the room was dimly lit, Asahi could hear the small smile on the man’s face. Asahi knew that he should be reassured—the proctors wanted him to _pass_ the test, not the other way around—but he still felt like an animal being led out for slaughter.

His knees started shaking, so he quickly made his way to the single, generic, cushioned chair that sat in front of the wine glasses. Asahi took a deep breath. This was a test, sure, but it was just like every practice tasting he had ever done. Three whites. Three reds. He had been tasting well for weeks; he shouldn’t be worried about anything.

Too bad his heart was roaring in his ears. Too bad his mouth was as dry as the desert. Too bad telling himself that he shouldn’t be worried had never worked for him, not even once.

Asahi took another steadying breath and reached for the first glass of white wine. The clear, golden liquid sparkled dangerously as it shifted in its crystal container. Asahi swirled the liquid in the glass, brought it up to his nose, and sniffed. The wine smelled like—

_What did the wine smell like?_

“Th-this wine—” Asahi began, starting to panic. He could feel the time ticking away from him. He was suddenly desperate to say something, _anything_. Maybe if he just said something reasonable he’d stumble onto the right answer. Except this was an _Everest_ of a test. He couldn’t pass by guessing—it was impossible. But he couldn’t fail! There was just too much at stake! He had spent so much time and money, working, studying, drinking, tasting, _smelling_...

He sniffed the glass again. Did it smell warm? Did it smell citrusy? Did is sparkle under his nose? Was it floral? Fruity? What did it _smell_ like? Why couldn’t he _smell?_

“This wine is—” It was a white wine. Was it bright? Dark? His test strategy came back to him like a flash of lighting. He could move on if he wanted to. He should move on.

Asahi put the first glass back and retrieved the second glass of white. He repeated his process, swirling the golden liquid, this one slightly paler, and then bringing it to his nose. Usually the layers of scents revealed themselves to Asahi in one or two sniffs, unfolding and blooming like a bouquet of flowers placed in a vase of water. Star-bright, grapefruit, sparkling lemon zest; mild, green grass, subtle hints of rosemary; youthful, dark-fruits, cherries, and spicy like pepper. All the ways wine could smell when he gave it his attention, when he focused his senses.

But today he smelled nothing.

Asahi tried to put it out of his mind and began to use his eyes. “W-wine two is a white wine,” he started, stumbling and stuttering over his words. It felt good to get something out of his mouth though, even if it was an observation that the average young adult could make in an instant. “It has a pale yellow color, and it does not cling to the rim of the glass. There’s—” Asahi swirled the liquid in the glass again. “There’s no gas or sediment in this wine, and there’s no sign of aging. Viscosity is medium.”

Okay, so far so good.   One of his five senses was working at the very least. Hopefully now his nose would be kick-started. He swirled the glass again, brought it to his nose, and sniffed.

And sniffed again.

“Wine two is—” Asahi began, feeling the panic setting in. All these months, all that practice, and he was just going to forget how to smell at the most important moment? No. He was going to do this. He just needed to remember all the work he had put in. All those note cards. All those glasses.

He stuck his nose in the glass and tried again. His heart dropped down to the seat of his chair. He began to sweat. He closed his eyes.

“W-wine t-two is—” 

 

 

Winging it really wasn’t an option.

The greatest honor in wine is to become a Master Sommelier, and it was an honor for a reason: in forty years of the test’s existence, less than 200 people in the world had passed the three exams necessary for earning the title.

The first exam was theory—an oral test on the history of wine and the methods of its production, as well as on the names and locations of the worlds most prominent vineyards. The second exam was on service—the examinee curating and serving a flight of wines, recommending and pairing food with wines that would enhance the flavors of the meal.

The third exam was a blind tasting of six wines—three whites and three reds. The test was scored on a person’s ability to verbally describe the wines, as well as their accuracy in identifying the grape variety, the country and district of origin, and the year the wine was produced, using only their senses of sight, scent, and taste.

Passing the theory exam gave the examinee three years to pass the other two portions of the exam, after which they would have to take all the portions again. Alone, all the portions of the Master Sommelier exam were daunting, but together, especially with the tasting, they were nearly impossible. The pass rate was a minuscule 8%.

And yet, the benefits of passing the exam were, for a lover of wine, worth it. The title of Master Sommelier gave a person the ability to work in the world’s most luxurious restaurants and hotels. A Master Sommelier could expect to fly around the world on the dime of wine and champagne brands for the sole purpose of endorsing their product. They could open their own tasting rooms. They could open their own _vineyards_. They could do what they loved for a living, and they could make _bank_.

Asahi couldn’t imagine a life he’d like more. His father had given him his first sip of a fancy French wine at dinner when he was only 12. The elder Azumane had just received a promotion, and Asahi had just had his first day of Junior High. Everyone had been in high spirits, and in the middle of dinner, his father had abruptly stood up and left the room.

The conversation at the table had stopped when his father returned with a dark bottle covered in a fine layer of dust. Asahi’s mother had smiled knowingly. “As wine gets older,” his father had told him with a small, patient smile as he uncorked the bottle with a satisfying _pop_ , “it gets stronger, more complex, more beautiful. You have to wait a _while_ , oftentimes years, before it reaches its potential.”

Asahi had listened with feigned interest until his father returned to the table with three glasses instead of the normal two. “Me too?” He had asked excitedly, hardly believing his eyes as his father deposited one of the glasses in front of his place at the table.

“One little sip won’t hurt you,” his father had said as the dark, burgundy liquid gurgled into the glass. Asahi had eagerly sipped the wine, thrilled to be having an adult drink for the first time, but his face had scrunched up in distaste once it had actually flooded over his tongue.

Asahi vividly remembered feeling overwhelmed—the taste was too full, too _much_ for his young palate. He remembered tasting it _everywhere_ —in his mouth, yes, but also in his nose, on his lips, in his _memory_. It was like tasting rain, flowers, tea, dirt, age. Somewhere in the mouthful, there was something good like chocolate, but everywhere else it was just sour sensation.

His parents laughed as his tongue slipped out of his mouth with disgust. “Maybe this wine needs to wait a little bit longer,” he had said, and his parents had laughed even harder.

It had taken a lot longer for Asahi to develop a taste for wine, but on that day, he discovered that he liked the way it made him feel. For Asahi, wine was celebration. Wine was sentimentality. Wine was a quiet evening with his loved ones. Wine was holidays. Wine was love.

Today, wine was failure.

Because of course Asahi had failed. But perhaps that was unfair to himself because he _had_ passed his theory exam. The proctor of his exam had made sure to emphasize this in his evaluation of his results.

“Truly, Azumane, you did a phenomenal job on your theory exam. Simply fantastic,” the proctor had said, giving him a reassuring smile when he recognized the expression of crushing disappointment on Asahi’s face. “And on your service exam, you were really, really close.” Asahi swallowed a bitter comment—close didn’t matter if you didn’t succeed, did it?

The proctor seemed unsure how to next proceed, and somewhere in him, Asahi suddenly felt bad for this man, who had been nothing but gracious, who probably hated failing people just as much as people hated failing. “I—I know my tasting was terrible,” Asahi said quickly, rescuing the proctor from his next sentence.

“Yes,” the proctor said, relieved. “Your score was well below what we expected of you. I’m sure you’re disappointed, because you know and I know that you _can_ taste. Actually…” he paused, frowning up at Asahi. “Can I give you a little bit of advice, Azumane?”

Asahi raised his eyebrows. “Absolutely.”

“The thing you need to work on most is your composure. I know it’s a lot of pressure sitting for this exam. It’s so much work, and it’s so much money, and there’s so much riding on it, but if you were calmer, I think you would have passed both Service and Tasting. Master Sommeliers are _salesmen_. They have to be courteous and charming, and we could see the nervousness in you. Confidence would have pushed you to a passing grade on Service. And I know you know what happened on Tasting.”

“Mmm,” Asahi hummed nodding. This was not news to him. He had been told that he was weak and fearful since grade school. Wine was what he was most confident about, but even in this arena, his nerves had gotten the better of him.

The proctor looked at him thoughtfully, sadly, and Asahi was hit with the urge to hide under a pile of blankets and never come out. He wasn’t too prideful a person, but the look of pity on the proctor’s face was obliterating the remaining paper-thin façade of strength that was shakily holding him together. He pinched his palm. He did not want to cry.

“Azumane.”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t give up, okay? You _can_ taste. You _can_ serve. I know it. I think you just have to realize that for yourself.”

Asahi pinched his palm harder, shook the proctor’s hand respectfully, smiled a watery smile and then bolted, heading for the bank of elevators. He tapped his foot impatiently as he made his way up to the seventh floor, and once he reached his room, his fingers were so shaky that it took several tries to insert his card key into the door.

Inside was his haphazardly made bed, the suit he had worn for his exam lying like a corpse on top of rumpled sheets. His flashcards on grape variants and vineyards and beer pairings and the manufacturing of Cuban cigars sat in boxes like bricks in the corner. The day was cloudy. The light was dim. Everything looked dull and drab and dead.

Death probably felt just a little bit like this, Asahi thought—painless, emotionless, but completely empty. He had felt like crying as he received his results, but now that he was alone, the tears wouldn’t come. It was like they had never been there in the first place. The hope he had placed in this venture had evaporated and taken his sadness with it, leaving only a vague feeling of failure.

He had spent hundreds of dollars on registration cost for the exam _alone,_ not to mention the money he had spent on teachers and tastings and travel and bottles of wine. He had spent a whole year doing nothing but studying, not to mention his lifetime spent learning about and loving wine. He wanted this for all of the right reasons.  He had real motivation to pass the test. What had happened? How could he have failed himself this badly?

Asahi knew that his proctor was right—he _could_ taste. And he hadn’t completely messed up—he _had_ passed his theory exam. And _most_ people needed to take the exam more than once. It was typical—expected even. But Asahi also knew the one thing he had to work on was the one thing he had never been able to figure out in his entire life.

“Work on your composure”? Yeah, right.

He sighed and made his way to his unmade bed, wriggling underneath the wrinkled sheets and blankets while one hand undid the tie in his hair. He stared at the dust motes as they filtered through the gray light of the room, too disappointed to even close his eyes.

Sure he could taste. Sure he could serve. Sure he knew wine like it was the back of his hand. He had been told that he had gift, that tasting was a talent, that his life had a direction; but even knowing that, his confidence had left him; his own body had failed him.

Finally, Asahi closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do. He had always been weak; he had _always_ been a coward. This was one test that he would _never_ pass.

 

 

Later on, Asahi would go to the reception celebrating those who had become Master Sommeliers. He was proud of the people in his cohort. They had gone through this whole damned process together, and two of them had actually passed. They smiled blissfully, as though their success had lifted them above all of the stress that still remained in their lives.

They deserved to be happy. Asahi gave out hugs and clapped his friends on their backs. It hurt, but he really was proud.

At the reception, of course they served wine. He smiled down at the little globe of red in his hand. “We meet again,” he muttered to it quietly, too silently for anyone else in the crowded, carpeted hall to hear.

He knew what wine this was: a 2008 Chianti made with a higher than normal proportion of Sangiovese grapes. He knew what it was supposed to taste like too—like wild cherries, like plums, like spices, like pepper. It was supposed to fruity and balanced and impressively complex.

To his tongue, it just tasted bitter.

 

~•~

 

The next time Asahi had a glass of wine was at the end of July, almost two and a half months later.

The hiatus was self-inflicted, and Asahi had almost convinced himself that it was healthy. He had drunk so many glasses of so many different kinds of wine preceding his exam, it only seemed natural to take a break and drink something else, and he also didn't need to consume something that made him feel so guilty and disappointed. But his friends knew him better—beer didn’t brighten his face, whiskey didn’t loosen his tongue, cocktails didn’t cause him to close his eyes in bliss as he sifted through the flavors in the g;ass. Asahi wasn’t addicted to wine _per se_ , but he seemed to wilt without out it, like a potted plant shrinking and depleted without water.

“No, no,” Asahi had told Suga when he and Daichi had appeared at the door to his apartment with the invitation to go to the wine bar. Asahi had smiled weakly, hunching into himself and backing into his living room in an attempt to escape. “I’m not into the wine stuff anymore, so you don’t have to bring me.”

“Of course we don’t _have_ to bring you,” Suga said, rolling his brown eyes and pushing into Asahi’s apartment impatiently. Asahi flushed as Suga raised his brows as he looked around Asahi’s living room. The light was dimly filtering though dark-colored curtains, like it might in a funeral home, but Asahi knew that Suga could still easily see that there were still pictures of vineyards and posters of famous vintages adorning the walls. “’Not into the wine stuff anymore,’ huh?” Suga asked dryly.

“Well, I’m not doing the Master Sommelier exam anymore, anyway,” Asahi said, as though this clarified why someone who hated wine was surrounded by all things fermented grapes.

Suga gave him an unimpressed look as Daichi made his way into the room with a steely glare. “Aren’t you still a qualified Advanced Sommelier?” Daichi asked as though talking to a particularly stupid child.

“Yeah—”

“Then shape up and act like it!” Daichi shouted, slapping Asahi on the back with so much force that Asahi could feel the shape of Daichi’s palm stinging on his skin. “You know Suga and I don’t know crap about wine, so we need you to come with us.”

“Right,” Suga said, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking a hip. “My friend told me that there are like ten pages of wine in the menu. How am I supposed to know which one will go well with my cheese plate and charcuterie? How will Daichi find the perfect wine to bring out the flavors in his steak?”

“Well, they probably have a sommelier on staff, so—”

“Asahi!” Suga exclaimed, making a flailing, grandiose expression of extreme frustration as Daichi grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose as if fighting through a migraine. “You expect me to wait thirty minutes for some stuck up Suit to tell us what wine to get? Seriously, what good are you?!”

Asahi coughed as the tough love hit him like a punch to the gut. He supposed that he was lucky that Suga hadn’t _actually_ punched him. His friend had a tendency to hit people lovingly, but Suga was stronger than he looked.

“Look, Asahi,” Daichi said, giving him an uncompromising look. “We have a reservation for three in thirty minutes. We wouldn’t be asking you to come if we didn’t want you there, so _come_. They have beers too, so if you really don’t want wine, you don’t have to drink it. But you have to stop blaming wine, and you have stop blaming _yourself_ for everything that happened. Okay?”

Asahi wanted to say no, but if there was one thing he was bad at, it was confrontation. He was trapped between not wanting to drink wine and not wanting to inconvenience his friends. He really, really didn’t want to be surrounded by all that wine and the disappointment it made him feel, but when it came to a choice between his friends’ needs and his own…

“All right,” he said. “Just give me a few minutes to get changed.”

“Dress is semi-casual,” Daichi called as Asahi made his way to his bedroom.

“If you wear that ugly-ass holey sweater, I’m gonna have to kill you, Asahi!” Suga called cheerily.

 

 

In the end, Asahi had ended up wearing the charcoal dress pants that Suga had bought him for his birthday in January. He personally thought they were too tight, but Suga said they made his ass look nice, and he wanted to be on Suga’s good side tonight. Suga had nodded in approval when he came out of his bedroom wearing the pants, a (non-holey) tee, and his favorite leather jacket.

“When you dress like that, Asahi, you make me think that you might actually fit into that wild hair of yours one day,” he had said. Daichi just raised his eyebrow at the scruff on Asahi’s cheeks and chin, and then the three of them were hurrying out the door to make their reservation.

The new wine bar, called Cocoon, was located in Shibuya, and looked like a hole-in-the-wall kind of place until the trio entered. Asahi saw Daichi smile, satisfied, at the look at his own face, once his eyes adjusted to the darker atmosphere.

It was like entering a cave or a cliff-side cavern—the walls were made of a warm-colored, rough-hewn stone, and the floors were planks of thick unlaquered cedar. There was a large bar in the center of the room made of what looked to be a polished half of a tree trunk, and the wall behind it was decked high with dozens of bottles. On each side of the main area were four tiny rooms, lit by amber light. Asahi saw why it was called “Cocoon.” Each of the little rooms felt cozy, private, and safe, especially in contrast to the bustling Shibuya district outside.

“Reservation for Sawamura,” Daichi said confidently at the hostess table, and they were whisked away to the room in the far back on the left. The back wall looked to be made of French oak aging barrels. The table was low to the ground, and Asahi, Daichi, and Suga sat themselves around it on the cushions situated on the floor.

“We have over 400 different wines from thirteen different countries,” the waitress revealed as she set the binder that contained the wine menu down in the center of the table. “The menu can be overwhelming for some people, so we have a sommelier on staff, and, quite honestly, it’s fun to pick his brain even if you know exactly which wine you want.”

“Great!” Suga said, a big smile on his face. “Make sure you send him our way!”

Asahi had the distinct feeling that Suga had something planned, but their waitress didn’t seem to sense any danger, her face brightening in a mirror of Suga’s expression.

“I will!” She said perkily, “And I’ll let you gentlemen get acquainted with the menu, unless there’s anything you need right now?”

Daichi sent her away with a request for three glasses of water, as Asahi directed an accusatory glance at Suga.

“I thought you didn’t want a ‘suit’ to tell you what wine to get,” he said, feeling a little frustrated.

“Oh, I couldn’t care less about what wine I get,” Suga responded airily, waving a hand as if to brush Asahi’s statement aside. “This for _you_.”

“Me?”

Daichi gave Asahi a slightly pitying look. “We know how much you miss talking wine with your—what do call them?—‘MS buddies,’ even if you refuse to acknowledge it.”

“We can’t talk wine with you, but we _can_ facilitate a conversation with the sommelier at this place,” Suga remarked casually while leafing through his menu. He looked entirely too calm for a person who was plotting to throw his best friend into an extremely uncomfortable social situation.

“Guys, _please_ don’t bother this guy,” Asahi begged quietly, leaning across the table to look pleadingly into the faces of his unimpressed-looking friends. “He has a job to do! He doesn’t want to talk to me!”

“Sure he does!” Suga said. “You passed your theory exam didn’t you? You know everything about wine.”

“Yes, but he’s actually working in the industry, so—”

Daichi looked like he was getting a headache again. “I thought you said that there were no Master Sommeliers currently in Japan. That would mean he couldn’t possibly be more qualified than you. What’s there to worry about?”

Asahi opened his mouth, but he couldn’t seem to find an excuse. Daichi looked satisfied.

“Look, we’ll make sure the conversation gets started right, so you don’t have anything to worry about. And if he’s stuck up, we’ll just tell him to shove his recommendations up his ass, okay?” Asahi made a choking noise as Suga continued to leaf through his food menu. “I don’t even know why I’m looking at this. I know what I’m getting already…”

Daichi just passed Asahi the wine menu and returned his eyes to his own menu to look for his dinner choice. “You always choose your dinner based on what wine you want anyway,” he said knowingly.

Asahi picked up the heavy binder and started to look through the wine list. It really was impressive. The waitress wasn’t lying when she said that there were over 400 wines, and many of them were from vineyards that he had studied. Asahi saw a few reds that he might like to try, remembering not to go to crazy with his choices. Nobody at the table wanted to pay for a $500.00 bottle of wine, at least not tonight.

He was lost in the menu, senses dulled by the everyday sounds of laughter and conversation around him. Asahi was happily trying to find a wine that would compliment the Iberian ham sampler that Suga had, apparently, been dying to taste for months, when the waitress returned with their waters and with a man who must have been the sommelier.

The sommelier, if that was indeed who had arrived with the waitress, was not at all what Asahi had expected. His build was small, though the leanness of his form gave him the appearance of being long-of-limb. His hair—a fashionable undercut with highlights around the crown of his head—seemed in direct conflict with the classy ambiance of the bar.  He wore a tight, white dress-shirt tucked into narrow black dress pants, but the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, exposing an intricate looking sleeve tattoo on his right arm. Overall, the young man looked like he might fit better in a trendy nightclub than a quiet wine bar, but nevertheless, he looked completely at home and comfortable in his environment.

Asahi didn’t think they’d have a problem with the sommelier being stuck-up, but he felt intimidated anyway.

“Here are your waters,” the waitress said, placing glasses tinkling with ice on the table. Then she stepped back to smile at the man standing next to her. They were almost equal in height. “And _this_ is the sommelier here!”

“Nishinoya Yuu,” the sommelier said, grinning. He had a completely self-assured look about him. Asahi was certain the MS proctors would ever tell _him_ took work on his composure. “Are you all ready to ask me any questions? Need any recommendations?”

“Sure, Nishinoya,” Suga said, resuming what Asahi though was his somewhat embarrassing habit of always using people’s names. “I don’t know anything about wine, so why don’t you recommend something good for me?”

Even though Suga’s tone of voice always sounded vaguely flirtatious, the sommelier—Nishinoya—responded without even a flush to his pale cheeks. “Sure thing,” he said, smiling, while the waitress snuck away. “It’s an unpopular opinion here in Tokyo, but I’m a huge fan of the New World wines—”

Asahi couldn’t stop himself—he knew too much. “That might not go with what you want to eat though, Suga,” he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Asahi saw Daichi smirk proudly at him, but most of his focus was taken up by Nishinoya’s eyes, which had turned to him intensely.

They stared at each other for a just a moment, the sommelier’s gaze curious, before Nishinoya turned his eyes back to Suga, asking, “What are you having?”

“The charcuterie,” Suga replied innocently, though Asahi recognized his smile as one of the devious ones.

“Then your bearded friend is right,” Nishinoya said with a firm nod. “We’ll find you an old world wine.”

Daichi looked at the sommelier and Asahi curiously. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the difference?”

“There are tons of differences!” Nishinoya exclaimed, turning excitedly to Daichi. “But the difference your friend is referring to is that New World wines are generally more alcoholic.”

Daichi still looked confused, so Asahi explained. “A lot of alcohol would overwhelm the saltiness of the ham. Suga needs something lighter.”

“Right again! You know your stuff, Beard-san!” Nishinoya said, causing Asahi to choke on his water at the strange nickname and the second reference to his scruff.

“It’s nothing,” Asahi muttered after he finished spluttering.

“No it’s not! An amateur would have recommended a heavy red wine, but you want to give your friend something light. That’s not common knowledge. You’ve studied wine haven’t you?”

Asahi refused to look at his meddling friends, who, it turned out, didn’t actually have to do too much meddling to get him talking about wine again. Asahi fiddled with his hair self-consciously. “I have. I’m an Advanced Sommelier.”

“No, shit!” Nishinoya exclaimed loudly, causing a couple at the bar to glance, alarmed, over at their table. “Me too!”

“Our Asahi is just being modest,” Suga said conversationally while fixing Asahi with a saccharine sweet grin. “He’s halfway to being a Master.”

“I—I’m not—Halfway is a really nice way to put it…”

“I’m studying for the exam right now!” Nishinoya fairly shouted. “What parts have you passed?”

It would have been imperceptible to Nishinoya, but the atmosphere at the table immediately tensed. Daichi and Suga were watching Asahi carefully to see how he’d react to questions about the test.

“Just…just theory.”

“Just theory? Aren’t you any good at tasting?”

From anyone else, Asahi would have been completely cowed by the question. From anyone else, Asahi would have been convinced the question was a taunt—some sort of nasty provocation to needle him about his lack of skill. Nishinoya, however, had not even a _hint_ of fight in his eyes--just a burning desire for an answer.

For once in his life, Asahi didn’t fear any ulterior motives.

“I am, but I think that in the moment the pressure got to me.”

Daichi let out a little puff of a held-in breath as Nishinoya continued talking in his loud, upbeat voice. “I know what you mean, man. It’s totally intimidating isn’t it? You’ll get ‘em next time!”

Asahi didn’t bother correcting him.

“So, since you’re still studying for service, do you want to make a recommendation to your pork-loving friend?” Nishinoya asked, kneeling down at the head of their table to look at them at eye level.

“Oh, no—that’s not necessary—”

“It’s a wine off!” Suga cried delightedly. “Asahi, you should show Nishinoya your stuff!”

“M-my _stuff_?”

“Yeah, Asahi-san, show me your stuff!” Nishinoya laughed as Asahi tried not to choke (again) at the use of his first name. “I want to hear what a Master Sommelier would recommend!”

“W-well, you know the menu better than me, but…” Asahi felt his nerves rising in his chest, but Daichi shot him a quick smile that seemed to say, _no pressure_. _Right_ , Asahi thought. _This isn’t a test_. He took a deep breath. “I would probably choose a Lambrusco—the Cantina di Sorbara, if it’s chilled.”

Nishinoya laughed and clapped his hands, making Suga smile and Daichi jump at the volume. “A sparkling red? A _gutsy_ choice, Asahi-san! And a _good_ one! We do indeed have it chilled!”

“What would you have chosen, Nishinoya-san?” Suga asked.

“Please! For you three, it’s just Noya. And I was going to pick a fruity Sauvignon Blanc, but your friend’s recommendation is _way_ better.”

“Does this mean that Asahi won the ‘Wine Off’?” Daichi asked, adding finger brackets to his question.

“Definitely,” Noya said confidently, not dampened in the least by defeat.

“What does he win?” Suga asked, waggling his eyebrows conspiratorially at Noya.

“I don’t know…” Noya said honestly. He turned to look at Asahi, and for the first time since the beginning of the conversation, the look on his face had changed. The brazen, confident grin was replaced by a soft smirk and cocked brow. “What do you think, Asahi-san? Is there anything you want?”

Asahi had the vague impression that Nishinoya was flirting with him, but that couldn’t possibly be true, could it? Even if it wasn’t, color started to creep up his neck anyway. This guy was just too sure of himself—too forward. “Uh…” he said dumbly as Daichi and Suga smirked in the corner of his vision. “I want you to…pick my meal? And pair it with a wine? I guess?”

Nishinoya blinked, and the flirtatious feeling vanished in an instant. “Sure thing!” he chirped. “And Manly-san, you seem like a steak and Barolo kind of guy, am I right?”

Daichi choked on his water as Suga gave the affirmative, and Nishinoya walked away, somehow taking up at least twice the space that a man his size usually required.

“Asahi!” Suga hissed, leaning across the table. “You should have asked for his number! He was totally flirting with you!”

“You’re imagining things, Suga,” Asahi said, embarrassed. Asahi thought that he must be totally red by now. “Besides, Daichi was the one whose masculinity he commented on.”

“No, I think Suga’s right on this one,” Daichi responded, still fairly pink from Noya’s compliment. “You should ask him out, or at least ask him to study with you.”

“I’m not taking the exam again,” Asahi said firmly, much to the obvious disappointment of his friends. “And besides, I couldn’t ask him to study—”

A stem-less crystal glass was suddenly put down in front of him, and Asahi realized that the subject of their conversation had already returned.

“Study? For the MS exam? I’m actually looking for someone to do tastings with, and I _definitely_ need help studying for theory,” Nishinoya said.

“Um,” Asahi said, floundering.

“Can I give you my number? It’d be great to study with someone who knows as much as you!”

Here this guy was, so cool, so self-assured, practically _asking_ for Asahi’s number, telling him that he was fun and worthwhile; in the headiness of it, Asahi couldn’t muster up the courage to tell the truth. He had no business taking the exam again, not when his only critique had been on something he couldn’t possibly improve, not when wine could never make him feel the way it used to. But Nishinoya’s eyes were so intense, so clearly hoping for an affirmative…

How could Asahi say no?

“S-sure,” Asahi said, mustering a smile. “You look fun to study with too.”

 

~•~

 

Calling Nishinoya two days after going to Cocoon was going to take all the courage Asahi had in his body and _then_ some.

Good thing he had the extra motivational power of guilt in his body in _spades_.

“What do you _mean_ you haven’t called Noya yet?!” Suga shouted over the phone two days after the wine bar. “He probably thinks you rejected him! He’s probably devastated!”

Asahi held his phone away from his ear and cringed at the shrill pitch of Suga’s voice, only returning the phone to its proper place once he was certain Suga was done yelling.

“He was just being nice, Suga. And no one’s going to be devastated by me not calling them for 48 hours.”

“Shut up,” Suga chastised in an uncharacteristically rough voice. “Just _shut up_ , Asahi. He was not ‘just being nice.’ He straight up _gave you his number_. Plus, you’re hot! Of course he’s disappointed that you didn’t call! He probably wanted to drag you into the back room and jump you at the restaurant!”

Asahi desperately fought away the images that statement produced, but a fierce blush remained on his cheeks anyway. “Suga, please—”

“Don’t ‘Suga, please’ _me,_ Negative Goatee. You call Noya today. No! You call Noya, like, _right now_! He was so interesting and cool and fun! The least you could do is help him learn wine. Besides, I know you want to!”

“But—”

“I’m hanging up now. If you haven’t called Noya by the next time we speak, I’ll have _Daichi_ yell at you, and I know how much you love _that_.”

“Su—”

The phone line was dead. Asahi wondered, not for the first time, why his kind and refreshing friend only yelled at _him_. But the problem remained—he needed to call Noya, but what would he say?

Asahi ran a few opening lines through his mind (Hey, this is Azumane Asahi from the other night, what’s up? Too stale?) (Noya-san, this is Asahi. Still want to get together and study? Too suggestive?), and eventually decided that his best bet was to get it over with, like ripping off a bandage. If Noya didn’t remember him, then that was that, but Suga was also right—he actually _did_ want to talk wine with Noya. He’d also be lying if Cocoon’s sommelier didn’t intrigue him, at least a little.

It was 2:00 pm, so the bar wouldn’t be open would it? Asahi took a deep breath and pressed the call button. His stomach filled with butterflies as the phone started to ring.

On the third ring, the phone clicked—an answer.

“Nishinoya,” the voice on the other end of the line said cheerfully. That took care of at least _one_ of Asahi’s fears—Noya hadn’t given him the wrong number.

“H-hi Noya-san, this is Azumane Asahi,” he began nervously, already wishing he had started his sentence stronger like Daichi would have. There was a brief pause, so Asahi forged ahead. “You may not remember me, but, ah, I was at Cocoon a coup—”

“No way would I have forgotten you Asahi-san!” Noya’s chipper voice replied, interrupting Asahi. He didn’t mind—the unabashed excitement in Noya’s voice had already put him at ease. “I’m still thinking about your Lambrusco. God, what a freaking great suggestion! I straight up stole that idea last night, and the table _loved_ it.”

Asahi blinked, flattered. “I’m glad,” he said, smiling into his phone.

“Me too! I don’t forget people who make me look like a genius, Asahi-san, so don’t worry, I remember you… beard, sexy leather jacket _, everything_.” Asahi was thankful that they were talking on the phone so that Noya couldn’t see him break out into a sweat at the compliment to his jacket.

“To be honest,” Noya continued, “I thought you had lost _my_ number or something.” At this, he laughed raucously, and for the second time that day, Asahi had to move his phone away from his ear, though this time, without a grimace.

“No, just building up the confidence to call you,” Asahi replied honestly, shocking himself. Another pause. “Anyway, I wanted to know if you wanted to study with me or something? Sometime? I’d be happy to help you with theory if we can, um, maybe work on tasting together.” Not exactly a lie…just because Asahi wouldn’t be taking the exam didn’t mean that tasting wouldn’t be a fun exercise.

“Seriously?” Noya asked enthusiastically, the phone crackling with the force of his exclamation. “No way! That’s _great!_ I won’t slow you down Asahi-san, I swear! This will be a game-changer, I promise!”

Asahi laughed. “Are you always this excited?” He asked, surprising himself _again_.

“ _Always_ , Asahi-san,” Noya replied with conviction. “So do just want to meet on like Friday and _just_ study?”

Asahi felt like he was missing something, but answered the question as best as he could. “I mean, yeah, we could just study theory on Friday at 7:00 or something.”

“And where do you want to meet? My place? Your place? Common ground?”

Asahi took a deep breath. He didn’t really want to impose on Noya, but would Noya think it was creepy if he invited him over to his place? Asahi could practically see Suga rolling his eyes in the back of his mind, so he decided to go for it, despite his hesitation. “We can meet at mine—I’ll text you the address.”

“Sweet. I’ll bring a bottle of wine so that we have something to motivate us to study!” Noya said, thankfully sounding as sure of himself as always. “Any suggestions?”

“The Pinot Noir you gave me a couple of nights ago was fantastic, so I trust you,” Asahi responded, finding that he meant it.

This seemed to please Noya, who chirped at him about finding something interesting to drink and looking forward to seeing him in just a few days before hanging up.

He was just as much of a whirlwind on the phone as he was in real life, but despite his overwhelming energy, Asahi was shocked to realize that he was actually, truly excited for Friday night.

 

 

Preparation for Nishinoya’s arrival had started the next day. Asahi’s apartment, which, in the past, had been the perfect place for entertaining friends, had become dusty and forbidding. Asahi didn’t want Noya to think he was a shut-in, even if it was true, so he got to work dusting and vacuuming and washing and shining and generally making his home look like a happy place to be again.

Once his dark, garnet-colored curtains had finally been pulled back, his space looked quite comfortable and welcoming. The light fell warmly on his dark wood floors, and the huge leather couch in his living room now looked luxurious instead of overlarge. Asahi hadn’t bothered with a lot of the cleaning that his place had required since his exam, but now that he had actually cleaned, he felt worlds better.

In the hours before Nishinoya was supposed to come over, Asahi retrieved his old MS exam note cards from the back of his closet. He hadn’t looked at them since he packed them away when he left his hotel room after the proctor had revealed his test results. The lined 5x7 cards were in three large shoeboxes, filled from corner to corner and organized by subject.

Asahi smiled a little fondly. He had spent hours and _hours_ making them, and just looking at the way they were lined up in the box reminded him of facts he had thought he had forgotten. At least he had been prepared for this test. He knew the history of wine and beer and cigars backwards and forwards.

He brought the boxes of note cards to the coffee table in his living room and looked around him, satisfied. His apartment looked more alive than it had in months, and when he looked at the large poster that hung over his couch, the one advertising a vineyard he had visited in Santa Barbara, California, he didn’t feel even the smallest twinge of disappointment.

The last half hour before Nishinoya arrived was spent neatening up things that didn’t need to be neatened, opening all the windows to air out the mustiness of his apartment, closing the windows after deciding that the air outside smelled dirtier than the air inside, lighting a candle to make his apartment smell better, and then deciding that lit candles were a little too romantic for a study session. He also texted Daichi and Suga, who each told him (in their own ways) to quit worrying and just be himself.

When the doorbell finally rang ten minutes after Noya was supposed to have arrived, Asahi jumped as though he had been shocked. He took a deep breath before walking to the door and opening it to greet Noya.

Even though they’d only met once before almost a week ago in a dark bar, Noya appeared to recognize Asahi like a friend would, eyes alighting on his face instantly and mouth smiling cheerfully. “Asahi-san!" Noya said, tucking a brown paper bag that presumably contained a bottle of wine under his arm so he could grab Asahi’s hand and clap him on the back. “Thanks for having me!”

“My pleasure,” Asahi said, feeling a little bit less nervous already. He stepped aside so that Noya could walk into his apartment, which Noya did confidently, slipping off his shoes. He immediately looked around and then strode straight to the kitchen to put the bottle of wine in the refrigerator.

“Your apartment is so cool, Asahi-san!”

“Y-you think so?” Asahi asked, flattered.

“Totally! It’s decorated super nice!”

Asahi tried to accept the compliment and not blush too much. “What did you bring?” He asked, changing the subject.

“It’s been so hot recently, I thought we should have a nice, refreshing Chardonnay,” Noya said, tugging at the collar of his black t-shirt as if to demonstrate how desperately he needed to be cooled down. Asahi smiled to read the words on the front of it: “ _You had me at Merlot_.” He also noticed that the sleeve tattoo on Noya’s right arm extended up to his collarbone.

“What kind of Chard is it?” He asked, distracting himself.

“French and steel-aged, which means it’s gonna be super crisp and cool.” Noya grinned at him, and Asahi felt a shot of adrenaline. “But I didn’t have to tell _you_ that, did I?”

“Nope, you didn’t,” Asahi smiled, sitting down on his couch. “But it still sounds really good.”

“Right?” Noya asked. “So let’s get studying so we can drink it already!” He made his way to sit down next to Asahi on the couch, leaving just enough space so that Asahi didn’t feel nervous by his proximity. Then his eyes caught the shoeboxes. “Holy shit! Are those your note cards?”

“Ah, y-yeah,” Asahi said, scratching his beard and feeling a little bit bashful.

“So _many!_ ” Noya groaned, putting his hands over his eyes and sinking back into the couch. “I don’t think I can do this Asahi-san. Want to just get drunk and throw those things out the window?”

Asahi gave him a skeptical look, unsure whether he was supposed to agree or force his guest to study against his will. He decided that Noya wouldn’t be here unless he wanted to study, so he gave him a placating smile. “Please don’t throw my note cards out the window Noya-san,” he said.

Noya laughed—loudly, which Asahi was starting to realize was typical. “If you care about them that much, I guess they’ll survive...for now,” Noya joked, still looking at the note cards skeptically. “God I _hate_ the theory section.”

“It’s the easiest section to prepare for though,” Asahi said reasonably.

“Yes, but it’s also the most _boring_. You just have to talk for an hour about whatever stuff they want you to talk about—not even the most fun stuff. Don’t people in restaurants want to know interesting stuff?”

Asahi just blinked at him. Nobody liked the theory section, but for Asahi, it was always the part that intimidated him the least. It didn’t really sound as if Noya feared the test at all—he just wanted to do the "fun parts." Who thought of tests as _fun_?

“But I have to pass it anyway, right?” Noya said. “And I promised you I wouldn’t waste your time, Asahi-san! Want to start with regions of Spain?”

It was easy enough to find the right group of note cards (while Noya oohed and aahed over the organization of the box), and then Asahi started quizzing. Noya was unlike anyone Asahi had every studied with before, probably because Noya didn’t really seem like the type of person who ever studied.

The things he knew, he knew vehemently, answering the questions loudly and going off on anecdotal tangents about things Asahi had never asked about and had never even _known_ to ask about. The things Noya didn’t know, however, he didn’t even try to figure out. He’d just blink and ask for the answers, and, once he’d heard them, he would ask for the next question. Asahi wondered if the answers to the questions had sunk into his head at all, and he received his answer when they started going over the questions that Noya had missed.

“Okay, so tell me about the wines in the Montilla-Moriles section of Andalucia, and identify what drink besides wine they’re usually classified with.”

Noya just furrowed his brow and glared at the note card in Asahi’s hand while chewing his lip. He was obviously frustrated, and he obviously had _no clue_ what the answer was.

“Come on,” Asahi said, setting the card down and smiling at Noya patiently. “I know you can at least answer part of this one. What alcohol has a designation of origin from the south of Spain?”

Noya stared at him for a moment, and for the first time in the whole hour they had been studying, Asahi could see Noya’s brain working. Even though some serious thinking must have been going on under the surface, Noya’s outward expression was pretty funny—his face scrunched up and his eyes shut as if enduring a terrible pain or lifting a heavy weight.

All at once, his russet eyes flew open and looked at Asahi. “Sherry?” he exclaimed as though the shocked that the answer had come to him. At Asahi’s nodded affirmative, Noya jumped up to stand on the couch and pump his fist victoriously.

Asahi jumped backwards to avoid a kick to the face, but found himself laughing anyway. “Is it really that big of a deal to know that sherry comes from Andalucia?” He asked, chuckling.

Noya remained standing and put his hands on his hips. “For me it is! Who cares about sherry? Not me! It’s a real pain in the ass to study something I don’t care about!”

“W-well, for me, the trick is to make yourself care about _everything_ ,” Asahi said, setting the card down on his rickety coffee table. “You have to give it context. Give it a characteristic or associate it with a memory that you can’t forget.”

“Like what?” Noya asked, sitting down and tucking his legs underneath his body. Asahi swallowed. Noya seemed so frenetic and distractible that when all of his energy was focused on Asahi, it almost knocked the wind out of him.

“Well, the way I remember sherry is kind of particular to me, but—”

“Sounds like story time!” Noya shouted, shooting up off of the couch and practically running towards the kitchen. “Can we drink the wine now?”

Asahi was a little taken aback, and his mouth opened and closed for a few moments before he finally spoke. “But you haven’t learned anything yet!” He accused.

“Sure I have! And it sounds like you’re about to teach me everything I need to know about sherry and Andalucia.” Noya gave him a pleading look. “I’m sick of studying, Asahi!”

The truth was that Noya probably should have studied for a bit longer, but Asahi figured that he wasn’t a _tutor_. Noya was an adult after all; he could decide when he did and didn’t want to study. Asahi shrugged. “Corkscrew is in the drawer behind you,” he said, smiling. “Wine glasses are in the cabinet to the right of the stove.”

Noya made a fist-pumping motion and hurried to decant the chardonnay. The glasses he poured were very full, and when Asahi made a face, Noya waved a hand at him in an eerily unintentional imitation of Suga. “Chill, Asahi-san. The alcohol content is practically nothing.” He handed the glass of chardonnay to Asahi carefully. “So what’s the story behind sherry?”

Asahi cocked his head and smiled slowly, remembering. “It was the first drink I ever got drunk off of,” he admitted.

“You first got wasted off of _sherry_?” Noya asked, incredulous. Asahi eyed Noya’s glass of wine. He had gesticulated a little violently, and it was kind of a miracle he hadn’t spilled.

“What did _you_ first binge drink?” Asahi asked, genuinely curious.

“Vodka! Like a normal person!” Noya took a big sip of his chardonnay, closing his eyes to get a taste of it. When they flew open again, his expression was inquisitive. “How did you even get your hands on sherry in the first place?”

“My dad had it hidden in the back of his closet. I think he was saving it for something special, but I had always been curious about it, probably because he always made such a big deal about it being sweet.

“Anyway,” Asahi said, shaking his head, “it was the end of my last year of high school, and my first boyfriend had just broken up with me. He said something about wanting to move forward in life ‘un-tethered’ from high school, which, to be fair, was probably the smart thing to do, but it didn’t stop it from hurting a lot. It’s weird how it gets at the end of high school, you know? You just start to be so _over_ everything and everyone while being really sentimental at the same time. So when he broke up with me, I was really, really devastated...so devastated that I didn’t really care if my dad got mad if I stole the bottle of sherry from his closet.”

Noya nodded along, grinning. “You seem the type to have been a good kid, though, Asahi-san.”

“I was! I never misbehaved because I was scared of pissing off my parents. They wouldn’t have done anything but be disappointed in me, but that would have been bad enough. My biggest act of rebellion up until that point was dating the boy, which I didn’t tell them about. I just said that he was my ‘friend.’”

“We’ve all been there!” Noya laughed, taking a sip of the chardonnay.

“So my dad comes home, and I’m just sitting at the kitchen table with the open bottle of sherry drinking it out of one of his nice wine glasses, and he just sort of drops his bags and shakes his head in disbelief, like, _what the hell is going on here?_ But I’m still drinking the sherry, so he asks me—he says, “Asahi, what do you think you’re doing?”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘My boyfriend broke up with me, so I’m getting drunk.’”

Noya stared at him, agog. “You just told him everything?”

“Yeah. I was kind of tipsy, and like I said, I had stopped caring, at least for _that_ night.”

“What did your dad say to that?”

Asahi cocked his head and smiled fondly. “He said, ‘I’m glad you had the courage to tell me.’ Then he sat down, poured himself a glass of sherry, clinked it against mine, and started to drink. When my mother got home, we were both basically passed out in the kitchen.”

“You didn’t get off the hook just like that did you?”

Asahi laughed. “Hell no! I was grounded, and I had to pay for my dad’s bottle of sherry. That and my dad lectured me about the dangers of relying on alcohol when feeling sad. My dad let me tell my mom about being gay in my own time, and I think he was…okay with it, although he didn’t really talk to me about it much. All and all it was a good memory, and that’s why stuff about sherry sticks in my head, because it’s personal.”

Asahi’s face heated up as Noya scrutinized him for a moment. Abruptly he scooted closer to Asahi on the couch and raised his over-full glass of wine to Asahi’s.

“Let’s make a toast,” Noya announced, grinning easily. “To sherry, the elder Azumane-san, and to new friends.”

Noya’s smiles were so contagious that Asahi started grinning before he even realized it. Something strong thrummed in a chest, vibrating until he felt it in every nerve of his body.   “Cheers."

“Cheers!”

 

~•~

 

“What happened next?”

“Well, we drank our wine. He put on some music too—some crazy jazz hip-hop fusion thing that someone he knows recommended. And we talked for hours; it had been dark for a _while_ when he left. He’s the kind of person who could talk about anything for as long as you let him, but he’s so _interesting_ , Daichi. I didn’t mind listening.”

Asahi smiled softly into the phone, remembering, as the other end of the line went silent. “And?” Daichi asked, eventually.

“And I’m meeting with him to study theory again early next week,” Asahi replied, feeling a bit like an idiot. He was too happy, too excited about _studying_ to be healthy, but he couldn’t help it.

Daichi sighed, but it was a safe one—pleasantly exasperated, or something. “Good, Asahi,” he replied, sounding warm in a way only Daichi could. “I’m glad something is finally going your way for once.”

 

~•~

 

A couple weeks and several theory study sessions later, and it was finally time for a tasting practice test. Noya had loudly and ardently urged Asahi to be the one to taste this go-around, professing his guilty feelings about wasting Asahi’s time with his typical large and unabashed smile.

Asahi still hadn’t told Noya that he wasn’t actually planning on being a Master Sommelier anymore, if only because he didn’t want to stop spending time with him. Talking wine _was_ therapeutic for Asahi, just like Daichi and Suga had thought it would be, but even more of a tonic than the wine was Noya himself.

He was so straightforward and honest and bold—Asahi could listen to him for ages. Even if Noya went off on a tangent that Asahi didn’t understand, it was still fun to _watch_ him talk. His gestures were sweeping and grand and his expression illustrated every word he said.

He had felt guilty about his lie of omission, but he had begged Noya to take the first tasting anyway. He couldn’t tell Noya that he didn’t want to taste because he didn’t _need_ to. If he did, Noya would ask why they had been studying together in the first place, and Asahi would have to admit that he selfishly just wanted to… _what_? Be around him?

For anyone else, that might have been a good enough answer, but Asahi was starting to understand Noya. He understood him enough to know that dishonesty, cowardice, and evasion weren’t things that Noya would tolerate from _anyone_.

Asahi definitely wanted to see Noya taste before he told the truth and sent Noya running to the hills. But it was a little bit more than that. Noya was like wine itself—complex, interesting, layered, multi-faceted. Noya had the same effect on Asahi as wine did too—when they hung out, Noya made him wake up, listen, see, notice, _live_. He couldn’t let go of this shot of life just yet.

So here they were, sitting in Asahi’s bright kitchen preparing for the wine tasting. Asahi had selected the wines, trying not to make his own little practice exam too easy or too difficult. Noya was seated across from him in the same position Asahi himself had been in a few months ago—even if it was a slightly different situation.

It was weird, looking at the glasses of wine from the other side. Instead of the typical white on the left, red on the right, it was reversed. Asahi still felt anxious with the six glasses sitting in front of him though, and it didn’t escape Noya.

“Asahi-san!” He exclaimed, smiling brightly at Asahi’s expression. “ _I’m_ the one tasting, not you!”

“I know,” Asahi mumbled, scratching the scruff on his face absently.

“Just checking,” Noya said, shrugging. “You looked like you wanted to barf.” Asahi found himself blushing, but before he could feel too embarrassed, Noya grinned at him. “Ready for the Nishinoya Tasting Experience?”

“Ready,” Asahi said, smiling mildly and setting the timer on his phone. “Your time begins when you touch the first glass.”

Noya took a deep breath, winked at him, and then reached across Asahi’s kitchen table to take the first glass of white. Asahi pressed the button on his phone.

“Wine One is a white wine, obviously,” Noya said, his voice a little louder than normal. He held the wine up to the light and swirled it dramatically, grinning at Asahi deviously as the liquid jumped dangerously close to the rim. “Straw yellow, clear and bright like a summer’s day at the beach. Medium concentration, medium-high viscosity, with a gold hue around the rim of the glass.”

Asahi looked down at his check-sheet and tried not to grin. Noya, as predicted, was knocking this wine out of the park, even if it was meant to be an easy start.

Noya stuck his pert nose in the glass, took a long inhale, and then waggled his eyebrows at Asahi jokingly. Asahi tried to keep a straight face like a proctor would, but he felt the corners of his mouth tugging upwards anyway.

“This one has a beauty of a bouquet!” Noya announced. “Some of my favorite scents—stone fruits, specifically canned peach, super sweet, and also baked red apple and baked pear. But it’s still light, not overwhelming or violently fruity! Oh, and I’m also picking up some floral notes. Orchard blossoms.”

Asahi almost forgot to check off the things Noya got right on his checklist, that’s how engaging Noya was even while taking his test. He made direct eye contact with Asahi whenever he wasn’t looking at the wine, often making jokes and matching his facial expression to the taste of the glass—sultry for the darker, savory notes in some of the reds, brighter and exuberant for the crisp, clean whites.

The proctors were right about the importance of confidence. Asahi had always known that surety when describing wine was pivotal, but, watching Noya, he was getting a practical demonstration in fact. The fourth wine was actually a Pinot Noir, but Asahi _believed_ Noya when he said Tempranillo, even though Asahi himself had purchased the wine and knew differently.

Noya gave his answers like an actor on stage delivering his lines—as if the spotlight was on him and he was enjoying every minute of it.

When the practice exam was over—with three minutes to spare—and it was time to receive his critique, Noya appeared eager as opposed to anxious. “Give it to me straight, Asahi-san!” He chirped as Asahi peered over his notes. “I can’t learn unless you’re as harsh as humanly possible!”

Asahi chuckled a little nervously. “Are you sure you want me to be that mean?”

Noya nodded vigorously, seriously. “Yes!”

“The good news is, Noya, that if this was a real exam, you probably would have passed.”

“Probably?” Noya asked, his face falling for an instant.

“You characterized almost everything about the palates of the wines correctly, but misidentified some of the structural elements, and one of the wines at the end.”

“Ugh no!!” Noya yelled, tugging at his hair in frustration. Asahi resisted the urge to take Noya’s hands away from his head so he wouldn’t _actually_ rip his hair out. It was nice hair, after all. “Which one was it? The third white?”

“No, the third white was pretty much perfect,” Asahi said. “It was the first red.”

“What was it?”

“An old world pinot. You made it too hard on yourself, I think.”

Noya only frowned for a moment, and then looked at Asahi determinedly. “What else can I do better?”

Asahi looked at Noya hesitantly, but reassured himself that Noya wanted the truth. He didn’t need his confidence built up. “You need to be a little bit more accurate in your descriptions of oaks. You were wrong on the pinot because you didn’t catch the French Oak markers.”

Noya nodded enthusiastically, smiling at his critique in a way that Asahi wasn’t sure he ever could. Somehow, he felt like it was _Noya_ who was encouraging _him_ , even if it should have been the other way around.

“Also, you could stand to improve the accuracy of the structure elements, you really have the nose and palate down quite well, but you seem a little less interested in the body and texture.”

“That’s cause I _am_ less interested in them,” Noya whined. “But point taken.”

Asahi chuckled again. “You deliver all of the scents in taste with so much character though! Just bring that same passion to the rest of the test. I always think of it like I’m a detective, and the structure elements are the clues. If you don’t get them right, then it’s less likely you’ll find the killer, or the wine, or…whatever.”

Noya nodded, eyes brightening. “Yes! That makes sense! I just always feel like I’m losing my audience when I talk about it. But even if forensics is stale, it’s important to make the case. I get it, and speaking of which…” Noya reached into his book bag and pulled out a dark bottle of wine, the label of which was removed. “I want to see the great Detective Azumane at work!”

The happy atmosphere around Asahi evaporated in an instant. He could feel his smile wavering as Noya went to his cabinet to fish out a red wine glass. Was he ready for this? Noya wanted to _him_ to do a tasting  _today_? Sure, he knew _intellectually_ what to do, but could he actually _do_ it?

Every time he had drank wine since the glass of Pinot Noir Noya had given him at Cocoon he had been okay, but there was a difference between tasting and _tasting_. It was the difference between reading a book for pleasure and dissecting every sentence, looking for purposeful words and hidden meanings. It was the same basic action, but completely and totally intellectually _different_.

Noya turned around with the glass of wine in his hand. “Are you all right, Asahi-san? You look green again.”

“I’m, I—” Asahi felt himself sweating, just like he did before his exam, but he didn’t want to embarrass himself. Noya was always so cool and _confident_ , and Asahi knew that there was no way he would want to study with a sweaty, anxious wreck. He tried to keep his cool. “I just don’t know that I’m prepared to taste—”

“Then what better way to check than by actually tasting?” Noya encouraged, placing the glass in front of Asahi. He looked a little concerned now, and it was a look Asahi decided didn’t suit him. Even in the couple of weeks they had known each other, Noya’s expressions had always been alive and playful. Worried on Noya looked _wrong_. “Come on, Asahi,” Noya said, quieter. “I know how good you are at this.” He hesitated. “I won’t judge if you’re rusty.”

Asahi forced a smile and gazed at the dark, almost purple, red wine. He felt like a kitten staring down an adder. “Don’t run out of here if I identify this as a Sauvignon Blanc, okay?”

“Was that a joke?” Noya laughed. “Just give it your best shot!”

“O-okay then,” Asahi began, raising the wine up to the light. “This is a red wine...” he glanced at Noya, who was staring at him with rapt attention. “Obviously.”

“Obviously!” Noya jested.

“The color is a dark, red-purple,” Asahi said, mostly to himself as he stared into the glass. “The concentration is deep. I can barely see through the glass at all. It’s still bright though, like a jewel.”

Now came the hard part. His eyes hadn’t failed him on his exam, it was his nose and mouth that had left him in the lurch. But he couldn’t quit, at least not while Noya was staring at him so earnestly. _It’s not a real test_ , Asahi told himself as he put his nose in the glass. _It’s just for fun_.

He closed his eyes and sniffed.

And his world came alive.

The scent in the glass was overpowering, powerful. The first thing he smelled was currant. Black currant. Dark, ripe blackberries and something spicy like pepper, something bitter like a tobacco leaf. Asahi felt exhilarated. His brain was already eliminating options, bringing up possibilities, savoring and sifting through the scent.

“What do you think?” Noya prompted. Asahi blushed to be caught savoring the wine. He’d already forgotten his nerves.

“If only I could have had this wine on my test!” Asahi said, grinning. “It has a big, powerful bouquet. Dark fruits first and various spices second.” He took a sip and the palate revealed itself to him more. He heard himself rattling off flavors. “Blackberry jam and black currant and plum. Black pepper, mocha, maybe a little bit of rosemary, but not too herbaceous. Maybe a small bit of sweet citrus, which is weird, but…yeah, there’s definitely orange peel in there. There’s licorice in there too. And vanilla, lots of vanilla. It hits you in the face with fruit and then it’s peppery after. A silky finish.”

“What about structure?”

“Medium tannins, and a medium acidity. Full bodied, like _extra_ full-bodied. The vanilla is telling me it’s been aged in French oak.”

Asahi opened his eyes with a thought, and he met Noya’s eyes. He was grinning at him, smiling a little naughtily as if he had a secret, and Asahi knew that the suspicion he was holding must be right. He lifted his nose above the glass and took a little sniff—and there it was, the sharp, short scent of tar.

Asahi grinned too.

“So?!” Noya said, sitting on the edge of his seat. “What do you think?”

“This is a New World wine.”

“Mmhmm!” Noya nodded, eyes wide.

“This wine is Shiraz from South Australia, and the vintage is…”

“ _Yes?”_ Noya was literally on the edge of his seat, eyes even wider than they had been before.

Asahi winced, he had a range, but he wasn’t positive. “Is it from 2013?”

“ _YES!”_ Noya said sitting up out of his chair so fast it fell over. He didn’t even bother to pick it up as he grabbed for Asahi’s glass. “No one’s mentioned the orange peel before. Can I?”

Asahi was a little alarmed by how excited Noya was, but he was mostly relieved that he hadn’t failed his pop quiz. The wine had tasted amazing to him, and even though it had been a while since he had done a proper tasting, the flavors had sorted themselves out for him almost immediately. He had _succeeded_. There was something in his chest that felt a lot like victory, even if it was small.

Noya seemed to think so too as his eyes flew open after taking a sip of the Shiraz. “I taste the orange peel, Asahi-san! I taste it too!”

Asahi chuckled a little bashfully. “I’m glad. I was afraid to say it, but once I was certain, I _knew_ it was Shiraz, you know?”

“Totally!” Noya agreed, nodding ardently. “You know what? You have and Shiraz have a lot in common!”

Asahi was back to being a little nervous, and he adjusted the bun on the back of his head. “How so?"

“You look at it and think one thing, and then it does something completely different. It’s completely unique!” Noya exclaimed, running to Asahi’s cabinet to fish out another glass to pour himself some of the test wine. “You say, ‘hello you big, dark, beautiful wine, you’re just going to hit me in the face with the floral notes, aren’t you? You’re gonna dry out my mouth with tannins, right? And then it’s fruity and peppery, and it’s the only red that’ll give you citrus notes. And then if you pull back, it gives you tar. _Tar!_ I saw you smell that too, Asahi-san!”

Asahi felt himself blushing. All of these were traits that _seemed_ complimentary, even if he didn’t quite want to be associated with the smell of asphalt.

“When I saw you at the bar, I was like, ‘this guy’s gonna want a beer. He’s gonna sneer at the wine; he’s gonna order whiskey. But instead you pull out the most surprising, perfect recommendation for your friend, and you teach _me_ something! You look so wild and dangerous, but you’re not! You’re kind! You’re fucking afraid of disappointing your parents!” Noya laughed loudly, and took a sip of the wine, gazing into the glass.

He continued pensively. “Shiraz is _beautiful_ , you know? It’s dark and deep like a jewel, but it doesn’t do the dark, deep wine thing, so whenever I taste it without expecting it, it’s exhilarating. Plus it goes with all of my favorite things! Steak, kebabs, lamb,  _barbecue pork_ …!”

Noya’s mouth was practically watering now, so Asahi decided he needed to step in. “Are you saying I go well with barbecue?”

He was joking, but Noya turned to him with a serious expression. “I’m saying you’re interesting and exciting to be around, Asahi-san. And I haven’t figured you out yet, but I want to.”

Asahi blinked. Interesting? Exciting? Last time he checked, he was a meek shut-in who couldn’t work up the courage to talk to strangers without back up from his friends, who needed to work on his confidence and his composure, who spent more of his time worrying than actually living.

But he had been surprising himself recently, and he surprised himself again. “You’re not unlike Shiraz yourself,” he said, smiling, forcing himself to meet Noya’s eyes even though he could feel heat creeping up his neck and butterflies fluttering in his stomach. “And I want to get to know you better too.”

Noya gazed at him a moment, a small smile hiding behind the rim of the wine glass.

Somehow, his expression was guarded and bold at the same time. Asahi felt his heart race and his skin grow hot. Noya’s eyes were just _too_ much. His smile was just _too_ much.

Noya seemed to be struggling to say something, and finally he shook his head. “I’m not sure if we’re on the same page, Asahi-san,” he admitted, grinning. “But let’s get to work on this bottle and find out!”

 

~•~

  

“…and after we finished the Gewürztraminer he was way too drunk to take the train back to his place, so he stayed at mine. Suga, I finally found something that I _don’t_ like about him. He’s a morning person! He woke up at 6:30 am like a Disney princess or something. I guess I should’ve seen it coming.”

The line was dead for a full minute and Asahi had to check to make sure his friend was still listening. “Suga?”

“Where did he sleep, Asahi?"

“Uh,” Asahi mumbled, scratching his beard nervously and sensing some tension. “My place?”

“ _Where_ in your place?”

“My—my couch?”

“ _ASAHI!”_

“Suga!” Asahi countered, feeling defensive. “I wasn’t going to _make_ him sleep in my bed! I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable! The last thing I want to do is scare him away!”

“Asahi,” Suga started authoritatively. Asahi walked over to his couch and sat down, sensing a rant coming his way. He wasn’t wrong. “I could probably write a motherfucking _dissertation_ on all of the signals you’ve missed. Fuck the fucking Gewürztraminer, Asahi. _Fuck the fucking Gewürztraminer!_    He wasn’t thirsty for the Gewürztraminer, he was thirsty for you _cock!_ He’s wanted to ride you since the moment you two _met!_ ”

“Suga!” Asahi exclaimed, aghast.

“ _Asahi!_ ” Suga shot back, mockingly. Then his tone softened. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that he likes you? I’m telling you that it’s entirely possible, and I _know_ you’re into him. I _know_ you are.”

“He—he may just honestly want to learn more about wine,” Asahi responded, though it even sounded false to his own ears. He wasn’t being entirely truthful. “And…”

“And?”

“And—and I just don’t see what someone like him would see in me. He’s a sommelier at a trendy restaurant. He’s amazingly talented, Suga. _Amazingly_. He’s talkative and fun and magnetic, and what am I? I’m a coward. I’m selfish. I just want him in my life for a little bit longer.”

Suga sighed sadly, and Asahi immediately felt guilty, regretful. “Asahi, it’s _not_ selfish to want to connect to people.” Suga’s voice broke, and Asahi grasped his phone just a little bit tighter. “You _deserve_ happiness, Asahi, and I can’t even imagine how hard it must be to put yourself out there right now--with a sommelier of all people!--but you deserve it. You are _deserving_ of it.”

Asahi could tell by Suga’s breathing that he was trying to calm himself down, and it wasn’t working. “I’m sorry,” Asahi said, meaning it.

“Don’t be,” Suga ordered firmly. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m pushing you into this, and I have no idea if you’re _ready_. You don’t have to be ready after your da—”

“You’re right too, Suga,” Asahi consoled, interrupting. “I might like him, and I should do something about it.”

Suga sniffed on the other end of the line, and Asahi smiled.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you that he invited me to the bar his friend owns for drinks next Friday?”

“ _Yes?!_ ”

“Do you want to come along with Daichi? There’s going to be a live band so being there with me won’t be awkward, and to be honest, I’d feel better with back up.”

“I’ll be there,” Suga said. “And I’ll call Daichi as soon as I get off the phone with you.”

“Thanks Suga.”

“No problem, Asahi,” Suga said earnestly, sniffling just a little bit. “I’m here for you, and I…I’m not going anywhere.”

 

~•~

 

Noya’s friend’s bar was more like a college dive than a trendy Tokyo hotspot.   It was dimly lit, slightly grungy, and chock full of businessmen and women grasping bottles and glasses of beer in every shade of amber, gold, and brown. In the far back corner a complicated soundstage was set up, and when Asahi, Suga, and Daichi arrived the lead singer was already belting the words to a raucous rock song over a guitar, bass, and drum kit.

The bar itself was long and took up almost the entire right wall of the space. It looked crowded, almost claustrophobic, as standing patrons leaned over their seated counterparts to wave their credit cards in the faces of the bartenders, hoping to get a round of beers for their friends. Behind the bar, the bartenders were in constant motion, grabbing beer bottles and filling glasses from the brews they had on draft.

The only still spot in the whole place was at the very far end of the bar, closest to the soundstage. One bartender was standing in place in front of the person seated at the last chair, ignoring the customers trying to get his attention all around him. All at once, he burst into one of the loudest, most violent fits of laughter that Asahi had ever heard or seen in person, able to be heard even over the din of the bar.

He heard Noya’s own loud laugh start only a moment later, obviously the cause of the outburst, and Asahi motioned to Daichi and Suga to follow him, leading their trio closer to the band, the bar, and Nishinoya.

This bar was absolutely not the kind of place Asahi frequented, simply because of the press of people on all sides, but as usual, Noya seemed to occupy more space than was necessary for a man his small size. There was plenty of room by Noya’s barstool for Asahi, Daichi, and Suga to stand comfortably. The bartender, an intimidating-looking young man with plenty of piercings and an intricate-looking dragon shaved into the side of his head, motioned to Noya to signal their approach.

Noya turned around and smiled widely. His face was flushed, though it was impossible to tell if it the cause was the stuffiness of the bar, the alcohol, or their appearance. “Asahi-san!” He exclaimed loudly. “Suga-san! Manly-san!”

“You can just call me Daichi,” Daichi responded not unkindly as Asahi and Suga squeezed as close as they could to Noya’s barstool.

“Fair enough,” Noya said, grinning unabashedly and then taking a gulp of the dark-brown beer in front of him. It was only standing next to him that Asahi could see the words on his well-worn t-shirt, which featured a bunch of coquettish-looking cartoon grapes saying, “Crush me, Press me, Make me _Wine!_ ”

Suga looked up skeptically at the menu of drafts and bottles that was written in chalk above the bar. “Tanaka, it’s fine if there isn’t, but is there anything besides beer here?”

“Sure!” Noya shouted, clapping Suga on the back a little forcefully. “And the first round’s on me! Tanaka has _everything_ here, don’t you, Ryuu?”

“All the good stuff, anyway!” Tanaka, the intimidating bartender, laughed loudly, though at what, Asahi wasn’t quite sure. Then he turned square to face Asahi, and Asahi felt a little unwelcome and unnecessary thrill of fear. “You’re Azumane, right?” He shouted over the noise around them. “Azumane Asahi?”

“Y-yes, that’s me.”

“Then this is for you!” Tanaka slammed a bottle of Asahi Stout, dripping with condensation, on the bar in front of him and then proceeded to uncap it. “Ever since Noya told me about you, I’ve been dying to give you one of these! We sell _so_ much Asahi, but I’ve never seen an Asahi drink an Asahi!”

Noya laughed and Suga snickered beside him as Asahi smiled and took the beer in front of him. He took a sip, the heavy, chocolaty flavor rolling over his tongue. Tanaka stared at him as he swallowed.

“Is it everything you imagined?” Daichi asked, smirking.

Tanaka frowned and shook his head. “No, it’s definitely missing something…”

“What about this?” Noya reached to snatch the beer bottle out of Asahi’s hand and rip the label off of it. Then he licked the back of the Asahi label, and leaned forward to reach up towards Asahi’s face. “Come here a moment,” Noya ordered, grinning.

Asahi saw where Noya was going and obeyed, smiling with a little bit of embarrassment. Noya grasped his chin forcefully and put the damp Asahi label on his forehead, smoothing it with one hand as he steadied Asahi’s face with the other. Then he leaned back to admire his handiwork.

“How’s that?” Noya asked proudly.

Tanaka shouted, “Awesome Noya!” as Suga laughed uproariously and Daichi reached into his pocket to pull out his phone and snap a picture. Asahi couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just smiled sheepishly and took another sip of his beer.

“Why don’t we do a round of sake bombs, to get us started?” Suga asked mischievously, once Daichi had finished taking the picture.

“Trying to get smashed as fast as possible? You’re a man after my own heart, Suga-san!” Noya shouted joyfully, clapping his hands together. “Ryuu?”

“I’m on it, my friend!” Tanaka called as he headed towards the center of the bar, presumably to get their four shots of warm sake.

Daichi leaned around Suga to look at Noya. “How’s the studying going, Nishinoya? Learning anything interesting?”

Noya took another great big gulp of his beer, and gasped after swallowing it, obviously hurrying to finish it before their sake bombs came. “I’ve learned tons!” He announced happily. “But _mostly_ I’ve learned that Asahi-san is a really good teacher.”

Daichi cocked his head, interested. “How so?”

Nishinoya shrugged smiling. “I don’t know! He just makes everything so exciting and easy!”

Suga made an odd expression, somewhere in between disbelief and satisfaction. “What does he do?”

Asahi was starting to feel self-conscious. “Suga, Noya doesn’t want to talk abou—”

“No, it’s okay! I don’t mind!” Noya told him with an earnest grin. “If I ask, he tells me all these stories about wines he’s tasted and vineyards he’s visited and breweries he’s been to. He has so much to say!” Noya nodded, satisfied with the answer, as Suga positively beamed. “And, of course, he doesn’t get fed up with my antics like some of my past study partners did.”

Asahi was confused. “Antics?”

“I’m loud and I never want to focus and I always talk and get off-track when you’re trying to be serious,” Noya said, as if confused what Asahi was missing.

“But I _like_ hearing what you have to say,” Asahi said sincerely.

It was the first time Asahi had ever seen Noya speechless. His eyes opened in surprise, as if he had never considered this possibility, and then his mouth opened once, then twice, as if hoping the words would come out if they had a place to go.

Daichi coughed, breaking their brief pause in conversation. “Then we’re glad you could find each other,” he said. “Suga and I never have any clue what Asahi’s talking about.”

Noya laughed, maybe a bit relieved to change the subject. “That’s okay! Ryuu never knows what I’m talking about either, do you Ryuu?” Tanaka had just come back, balancing four shots of sake and four pint glasses of pale gold lager on a platter.

“I don’t understand a word you say about wine,” Tanaka proclaimed loudly, placing pairs of chopsticks atop the pint glasses and then carefully beginning to balance the sake shots on top of them. “But that doesn’t stop you from sounding fucking cool, bro!”

Suga giggled. “Noya definitely sounds cool, but our Asahi sounds more like a professor.”

“Hmm…” Noya grinned naughtily as he looked Asahi up and down once. “Maybe the sexy professor that everyone secretly wants to bang!” He joked, causing Daichi and Asahi to splutter and Suga to dissolve into giggles.

Tanaka just grinned at Noya proudly. “Who’s ready to bomb?”

“We are!” Noya called, leaning forward to raise his fists above the bar top in anticipation. “On three?”

Daichi nodded and took the lead, shouting loudly, “One! ...Two! ...Three!”

The four of them slammed their fists onto the bar, the shots shuddered and fell into the beer, and the four of them reached to chug their drinks as fast as they could. Asahi couldn’t taste the cheap sake because of the beer, couldn’t hear what Suga was saying because of the music, couldn’t even move his eyebrows because of the Asahi label on his head, but despite that, he felt present, lively, _spontaneous_.

Noya’s words were in his head, pushing him over a precipice he didn’t even know was there. Nothing was holding him back.

 

 

Asahi wasn’t even surprised when (after a round of tequila shots and another beer) Noya tugged on the sleeve of his dark-green polo shirt; he wasn’t surprised when Noya told him how hard it was to hear him and asked him to come outside. He followed him, trance-like, his head just the littlest bit foggy with alcohol, to the alley behind the bar.

It was the first Friday night of September, and it was a beauty. The night wasn’t sticky and hot like the inside of the bar, but was crisp, and just cool enough to be noticeable. The beat of the band thumped, distorted, through the brick wall, and there was noise from the traffic on the street, but Asahi had the fleeting impression that this, and not the peaceful quiet of his apartment, was the greatest silence he and Noya had experienced between them up to this point.

And somehow, despite them being alone, despite them standing so close, Asahi _still_ wasn’t surprised at the situation. Maybe Suga’s words had finally sunk into him. Maybe he had known that something like this might happen since the beginning.

Noya leveled him with his gaze, and again, it was like a switch. Gone was the electric ebullience he usually exuded, replaced by an almost frightening, fervid focus. “Did you know that you make me nervous?” He asked, not a shred of humor on his face.

Asahi blinked, then smiled fondly. “I didn’t think you ever got nervous.”

Noya smirked ruefully. “Everyone gets nervous, Asahi-san. I just try not to let it bother me. Usually I _like_ feeling nervous. I _use_ it. It makes me _excited_. But with you, I’ve been second-guessing myself. I _never_ second-guess myself. I’ve been unsure since the very beginning.”

A taxi honked on the street and Noya paused, biting his lip. It was all Asahi could do to continue to peer at him curiously. Noya had never spoken about being nervous or embarrassed about _anything_ before, and Asahi didn’t want to say anything to break the spell of honesty.

“Asahi-san,” Noya said. It sounded more like a command than a question.

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to know what I like most about wine?”

Asahi blinked in surprise again. “Sure.”

“It’s because it’s sensual,” Noya revealed. He immediately blushed ( _blushed?!_ ) at what must have been the look of surprise on Asahi’s face and started to backtrack. “I don’t mean sensual as in ‘sexy,’—though wine can be sexy!—I mean sensual as in when you drink it you use all of your senses.

“Because the more you drink wine, the more you practice using your senses, the better your senses become and the better your mind gets at deciphering what your senses are telling you. When I started drinking wine, I was proud when I could take a sip and taste cherries, and that’s good, but now when I drink wine, when _you_ drink wine, we taste cherries, but we know that it’s _black_ cherry, or cherry _skins_ , or cherry _jam_.

“And it’s not just the taste, it’s the smell, the sight. You start to really _see_ the hue of the wine at the edge of the glass. You can take one sniff and appreciate every thread of scent, smell them each individually to discover what they are or smell them all at once to get a sense of what it is as a whole.

“And it’s not just those either—you have to get a sense for how it feels on your tongue, the way it sits. You have to be able to taste and compare the taste, smell and compare the smell, see and compare the sight. And it’s the only way—gaining these skills, noticing these features—it’s the only way for a person to really have an appreciation of all the layers that wines can have! It’s the only way you can describe _why_ you like it or _why_ you don’t.

“And then it becomes about _more_ than just wine! It becomes about the way you experience the world. The food you eat tastes _more_ because you know how to taste, and you _remember_ what you taste. When you walk out of your apartment on a humid day, you _really_ smell it. You take it in. You face it and _live_ it. Good feelings become better; bad feelings become worse, but everything becomes extra, hyper, ultra-saturated, and it’s all because you started to want to be able to describe some dumb, fermented grape juice.”

Noya took a step closer to him, so that he and Asahi were almost standing chest to chest. For the first time since the day he met him, Asahi realized just how small Noya was—if Asahi wanted, he could easily tuck Noya underneath his chin.

Noya was still gazing at him, his eyes still focused, but lidded, thoughtful. He took a deep breath. “I think that’s why when you walked into my bar, I immediately evaluated you, looked at you, appreciated you, _sensed_ you. Tall, built, long gorgeous hair, a little rough looking, maybe a little dangerous. I liked what I saw, but I wasn’t curious. I wasn’t intrigued until you opened your mouth and you liked what _I_ liked. You were _nervous_ around me, but I had to _beg_ you to take my number, even though I _saw you see me_. Not dangerous, gentle. Not rough, soft.

“And I wanted to tell you this the first day I walked into your apartment, but you never gave me the clues I wanted. Normally I’d just tell you, but despite me using every sense I had at my disposal, I couldn’t tell if you were into me. I knew you liked guys, and I _still_ couldn’t tell if you liked _me_. Normally I wouldn’t even _care_.”

Asahi couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. His words came out rushed. “I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to scare you away.”

Noya laughed breathlessly. “Scare me? I don’t scare easily. _You_ , on the other hand? I didn’t want to come on too strong. But I get it now. And I’m telling you: I like you.” Noya hadn’t taken his eyes off Asahi’s the whole time he had been speaking, but now his stare shifted to Asahi’s chest. He placed his small hand there and looked at it for a tension-filled second, and Asahi wondered what he was thinking, whether he was hesitating or relishing the moment.

Noya looked at him again and started closing the distance between their faces, leaning into Asahi and bringing his other arm up to reach his neck and guide him down. Noya was blinking rapidly—nervous. “You like me too. 

Asahi didn’t even have a chance to utter his affirmative before their lips were together. Noya’s lips were gentle, soft, almost a question, despite the confidence of his words.

Asahi, for his part hadn’t realized how hungry he had been for Noya’s mouth on his until he had it. His breath was coming faster than he realized, he pushed their chests closer, and he felt his body moving on its own, reaching down under Noya’s arms, pushing his body toward the brick wall of the building, lifting him to get better access to his mouth.

It wasn’t perfect, their noses bumped together, their teeth clacked, but Asahi couldn’t find the place in his mind that was supposed to be embarrassed. He only felt the desire to feel more of Noya, to taste more of him.

Noya gave an airy little laugh when his back hit the wall, and rather than wait for him to catch his breath, Asahi lifted him higher and went for his neck, kissing the sharp line of his jaw.

“Here you go, surprising me again,” Noya gasped as Asahi brought their foreheads back together. He could feel the fire in his own gaze, the heat in his own hands as they pushed up under Noya’s shirt to find the cool skin on his back. “I just _knew_ you were going to treat me like glass, and yet…”

Asahi paused. _Fuck_. Did he mess this up already? “Is that what you want?” He asked. His own voice surprised him. It was deeper than usual, thicker, gruff, indicating against his will that soft hesitance was the last thing he wanted.

Noya just laughed and squirmed against him, bringing their lips back together and taking the lead this time. Noya kissed him slowly again, but not gentle or hesitant anymore; his lips moved steadily, deliberately, guiding Asahi into savoring the feeling of their soft lips moving over one another, the feeling of Noya’s legs wrapped around him, their bodies pressed flush.

Asahi felt his own body wanting to quicken the pace, to kiss faster. Noya, though, seemed content to just take Asahi’s lip and suck on it, pulling embarrassing groans and growls and sighs out of him. He gave each of Asahi’s lips attention, and he combed his clever fingers through Asahi’s hair and tugged softly with each give and pull of his mouth, increasing the sensation.

When Noya licked into his mouth to deepen the kiss, Asahi had the distinct and clear impression of being tasted, even over the roar of his heart in his ears and the heat that pooled below his stomach. He tried to taste Noya as well, sucking on his tongue, pulling him farther into his mouth. Chocolate, like the stout beer he had been drinking earlier, with an undercurrent of bright mint.

And it felt better than Asahi could have imagined it would feel if he had even let himself imagine it. They were hot together, passionate together. They had a rhythm together already that Asahi wouldn’t have believed if he wasn’t experiencing it for himself.

Noya was starting to make noises now too, little sighs and groans uttered directly into Asahi’s mouth or onto his skin, sounds that just urged him further, grasping Noya lower around the waist, pulling Noya onto his leg, pressing their hips as close together as he could.

“Asahi,” Noya gasped, eyes barely open, lips red and swollen, skin flushed and glistening with sweat. “Take me home with you, _please_.”

Asahi squeezed him tighter. As if anything else could possibly be on his mind right now. “If you’re sure,” he forced himself to say, still trying not to scare Noya away. “We’re both pretty drunk. I don’t want to make you do anything.”

“We don’t—we don’t have to fuck if you’re not ready,” Noya said hoarsely, cutting to the chase as per usual. He was panting now, and it was difficult for him to get the words out. “We just—if this goes any further I’m going to suck you off in this alley, and that’s not how I want this to go.”

Asahi stared at him for a moment, flushing a little, and then started to laugh breathlessly, almost hysterically, setting Noya’s feet gently on the cement beneath them in the process. Noya laughed too, hopefully feeling the same thing Asahi was feeling—disbelief, the surreal sensation of having a dearly held hope come true.

“ _Please_ come home with me,” Asahi said, voice thick with heat. “ _Please_ come home with me Nishinoya. Please come home with me, and I promise that when we get there I won’t show you a single fucking flash card.”

Noya laughed and got out his phone, ordering a taxi to come and pick them up. “And this time,” Noya said, shooting Asahi a look. “You can bet I’m not sleeping on your fucking couch.”

 

~•~

 

“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” Daichi began over the phone. “But Suga and I saw you and Nishinoya last night. In the alley.”

Asahi felt his whole body heat up, his self-consciousness probably turning him red from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. He didn’t remember too many _specifics_ from the alley beside the bar. Not because he had been too drunk to hold onto the memories, but because it had been surreal and overwhelming and there was so much sensation to remember—a week’s worth of memories compressed into 15 minutes.

However, he _did_ know that at some point he had Noya lifted in the air and pressed against a wall, probably rolling their hips together without realizing it, and that was embarrassing enough.

“I’m…sorry?”

Daichi sighed. Asahi could almost see the scoffing look on his face. “Don’t be _sorry_ , Asahi. I’m just warning you in case Suga starts making weird sex jokes around you.”

“Oh, then thanks.”

“Plus, you shouldn’t apologize for something that looked that good,” Daichi teased. “Suga wanted to record you two. He said he was joking, but I don’t quite believe him.”

Asahi chuckled. “I wouldn’t believe him either.”

There was a brief pause, and then Daichi forged ahead, displaying his usual tact. “How did the rest of the night go? If it’s private I understand, and you don’t have to share, but—”

“It went well,” Asahi interrupted, smiling sheepishly but unwilling to lie. “It didn’t go _too_ much further than what you would have seen in the alley. We were both drunk and exhausted, and it wouldn’t have been what either of us wanted if…if we had continued.”

“But the overall experience was…good?” Daichi asked.

“Good, yeah. _Great_. He slept over, and waking up next to him was…my day just started off _right_ , you know? Even if he _is_ a morning person.”

“I’m happy for you, Asahi,” Daichi confessed. “I really am.”

“Me too,” Asahi admitted. “I know it’s only been one night, but—”

“No, I get it. I understand. Don’t undercut how you’re feeling.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

There was another pause, and Asahi could tell there was something Daichi wanted to ask, but was working out how to word it.

“Does he—” Daichi began. “Does he know that you’re not taking the Master Sommelier exam?”

The warm feeling that Asahi had been experiencing since he woke up that morning vanished immediately, replaced with what felt like ice water running through his veins. Noya didn’t know. Asahi hadn’t told him. Asahi was _scared_ to tell him, and now all of his problems were compounded by the fact that the great relationship he had been building with Noya was now muddied with physicality.

“I can tell by your silence that you haven’t,” Daichi said. “You probably already know this, Asahi, but you need to tell him. As soon as possible. The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be for both of you.”

“I—I know,” Asahi said, scared again.

“You had good reasons for not wanting to talk about it,” Daichi said reassuringly, sensing the dramatic shift in Asahi’s mood. “Your reasons were totally valid. _Totally_. Nishinoya will understand.”

Asahi sighed. “I hope so.”

“Just tell him before it gets more serious than it already is.”

“I will, Daichi. You’re right. I will.”

 

~•~

  

Before he had left Asahi’s apartment on Saturday morning, Noya had made plans to come over and do a practice tasting with Asahi on Wednesday afternoon. Asahi figured that this was his best opportunity to tell Noya the truth—that he hadn’t registered to take next year’s Master Sommelier exam, and that he wasn’t planning to. The truth was best coming from him in _person_ after all, and he thought he needed every hour he could get to build up the confidence to tell him the truth.

Asahi needed to prepare for the worst. He had let this lie get too far, had strung Noya along for too long, and if their roles were reversed, if Noya had lied to him since the moment they met, he wasn’t even sure how he’d feel. Hurt—certainly. Angry—probably. Betrayed? Maybe, and that was what Asahi was most scared of. He had never meant to cause any pain, but as per usual his meekness was costing _everyone_.

When Noya knocked on the door Wednesday afternoon, Asahi was overcome with dread. He walked slowly to the door, trying to compose his features into their usual small smile, but knowing his face most likely looked vaguely nauseous.

When he opened the door, Noya beamed at him and grabbed him, wrapping his nimble hands around Asahi’s neck and bringing him down for a big, sloppy kiss, his backpack jangling with the wine bottles contained in it. It should have felt good, but Asahi’s disgust with himself only grew.

“Asahi!” Noya exclaimed when he released him, as if his name was an emotion in itself—a word to describe the feeling behind the huge grin on Noya’s face. He pushed past Asahi into the apartment, making a beeline for the refrigerator in Asahi’s sunny kitchen like he always did, reaching into his overlarge backpack to place the label-less bottles of white wine into the freezer to chill.

“I have some really tricky wines for you today, Asahi,” Noya continued as he placed the bottles of red wine on the counter and removed wine glasses from the cupboard. “I want to know exactly where you’re weak so we can work on it together!” He looked up at Asahi’s face then, looking for some affirmation. Whatever expression he found on Asahi’s face was not the one he was expecting. “What’s wrong?”

“Noya,” Asahi started, willing himself not to smile like he usually did when he felt uncomfortable. “Can we talk?”

These were obviously not the words Noya was expecting. He widened his eyes in surprise, narrowed them in thought, looked to the wine on the counter, then to nowhere in particular, his mind obviously moving quickly to predict where the conversation was going. After a moment, he sat down uncertainly at Asahi’s kitchen table. “Sure, Asahi-san.”

Asahi sighed and sat down at the table too, forcing himself to look at Noya in the eye, to not run away from this like he ran away from everything else. “Noya,” he began, brow furrowed. “I haven’t registered for the Master Sommelier exam.”

Noya blinked, and then let out a relieved burst of laughter. “Oh, Asahi! Neither have I! Didn’t you know that the test registration deadline is at the end of November? We might want to stop procrastinating, but it’s fine! That’s nothing to worry about!”

Asahi shook his head. “No. I haven’t registered for the exam, and I’m not going to.”

Noya recoiled as if he had been hit, frowning. “I don’t understand—”

“Noya—”

“Is this because of _me_?” Noya asked, his words growing shrill and rushed. “Is this because of you helping me study for theory? Because we don’t have to do that anymore Asahi, we can spend all our time studying tasting and service. I’ll study theory on my own. I’ll do _anything_ to help you feel prepared. I—”

“You’re not getting it,” Asahi said, growing a little louder and more frustrated. Of course Noya blamed himself. Of course he wouldn’t jump to blame Asahi. He was behaving as selflessly and good as he always did, and it was just making this harder. “I haven’t been _planning_ on taking the exam.” Noya’s eyes widened and his mouth opened in shock, though his features were quickly rearranging themselves into anger. “Not since I met you. Not since…not since—”

“ _What?!_ ” Noya shouted, standing up, the chair screeching loudly against the wood floor in protestation of the violent movement. His eyes were moving rapidly, his expression flashing from confusion to hurt to anger and back to confusion again. “What—when—why _not?!_ ”

Asahi brought his fingers together to form a steeple over the bridge of his nose. Trying to compose himself. “There are…there are a lot of reasons—”

“You _lied_ to me!” Noya shouted frantically, running his fingers through his hair.

“Technically I never _lied_ …” Asahi began, and as soon as he said it, he knew they were the exact wrong words to use.

“But you let me _believe_ a lie! We…we talked about the MS exam _every single time_ we hung out! Every single time! And you—what…when were you planning on telling me? On the plane to the exam?”

“I’m telling you _now_!” Asahi said, his voice raising. “You said I intrigued you… you intrigued me too! And then I wanted to _keep_ seeing you, and the exam was a good excuse to keep inviting you over, and I was scared what you would say when I told you. I didn’t know _when_ I was going to tell you, but I just didn’t want to scare you away!”

Noya scoffed, his expression still hurt. “So now that we’ve hooked up you’re confident I’m not going anywhere.”

Asahi felt like he had been slapped. “That’s not fair _or_ true, and you know it.”

Noya crossed his arms and shook his head. The light in Asahi’s kitchen seemed starker and less sunny than it had been a moment ago, and for some reason the low buzz of his air conditioning unit was just enough noise that it made Asahi want to cry.

“What I don’t get,” Noya said, less angry but not quite calm, “is why you don’t want to take the exam! You’re _good_ at this, Asahi. It’s not like you lied about knowing wine!”

“For one, even if I take the exam again, I’m not going to pass.”

Noya’s hands flailed up to grab his own hair, and he looked down at Asahi in extreme exasperation. “What kind of talk is that? _Says who?!_ ”

Asahi stood up out of his chair too. “Says _me!_ ” He yelled.

For a brief moment Noya actually looked scared, but then he stepped forward towards Asahi, just as fierce as before. “ _What_ are you talking about? Almost _everyone_ fails the exam! _At least_ once! Sometimes _twice!_ _Three_ times even!”

“But what I have to improve on is something I _can’t fix!_ ”

Noya sneered, disbelieving. “What, do you have the inability to taste Malbec or something? Were your taste buds burned off in some kind of freak accident?”

Asahi knew Noya would be angry, but he hadn’t been expecting _fury_. He felt himself becoming defensive and tried to calm himself down, carding his fingers through his hair. “No, that’s not it.”

“ _Then what_?!”

“It’s my confidence, Noya!”

Noya blinked, the anger momentarily washed off his face in the sudden flood of confusion. “Huh?”

“The proctor of my exam said that the thing I had to work on was confidence, my surety. But, Noya, I can’t. I’ve never been confident in anything. I’ve never been sure of _anything_.”

“Asahi, if that’s what this is, then all you need to do is practice,” Noya said, a trembling, desperate smile forming on his face. “We can _get_ you feeling confident in your wine variants. We can make you feel more prepared—"

“You’re not getting it,” Asahi said shaking his head. “I’m _never_ going to feel confident. It doesn’t matter how much I study or how much I know. I’m a _coward_ , Noya.”

“A coward?” Noya asked, confused. “Who called you a coward, Asahi? Who said that to you?”

“Does it _matter_?” Asahi asked, his voice growing in volume. Noya stepped back, intimidated by his tone. “ _I_ called me a coward. _I_ did. Because it’s true. I’m scared of _everything_ , Noya. I’m scared of the test; I’m scared of taking it; I’m scared of failing it again; I’m scared of putting all my eggs in one basket and losing _everything_ like I did last time. I’m scared of _you_ right now. I’ve been scared my entire life, and it’s _always_ hurt me and everyone else around me.”

Noya stared him down. “So you really aren’t taking the test. You’re really giving up on all of this…because you’re scared?”

Asahi looked him, hurt. Angry. “It’s not just that,” he tried to say. “Wine just doesn’t make me happy anymore because—”

“That’s _bullshit_!” Noya spat. “That’s bullshit, Asahi! I know how happy wine makes you. I’ve _seen_ it! I _know_ you want to do this!”

All of a sudden it was just too much. This was not at all how Asahi had hoped this conversation would go, and he was overwhelmed by everything…by how much Noya _cared_ , by how much he was struggling to convince him to change his mind. His guilt sat like a brick in his stomach, his frustration screamed like a siren in his head, and all at once he just wanted Noya _away_.

“You don’t know anything about me,” he said coldly.

Noya looked at him for a moment with wounded incomprehension. Asahi immediately wanted to take it back, but Noya was already turning around, grabbing his backpack, and heading for the door.

“Noya,” Asahi started, repentant. “Wait—”

Noya turned around. “You want to know what I think, Asahi?” He asked, and Asahi immediately felt terrible because there were tears stinging the corners of Noya’s eyes. “I think a long time ago someone told you that you were a coward, and instead of telling them to fuck off, you held on to it like a lifeline. Because being a ‘coward’ is your excuse to avoid everything that’s hard, everything that’s dangerous, everything that’s risky, everything that’s _worth it!_

“You’re not a coward, Asahi, because if you were, you never would have started down this path in the first place! You never would have signed up for a test that you had such a small chance of passing. You wouldn’t be standing here, listening to me, enduring this, if you were so spineless that you couldn’t retake an exam!”

Noya blinked, and two hot trails of tears ran down his face. He rubbed them away angrily. “You’re _good_ at this, Asahi. You, _you_ , are amazing.” Noya smiled ruefully. “I wish you could have seen what I saw in you.” He turned, pulling open the door.

“Noya—”

“What?”

Asahi looked around the room, looking for anything that would get Noya to sit down, to listen to the rest of what he had to say. In the end, his eyes alighted on the bottles of red on the counter. “Your wine…”

Noya scoffed and gave Asahi a bruised and bitter smile. “Keep it.” He walked out the door and shut it behind him with a click that sounded an awful lot like finality.

Asahi’s primary feeling was that his world had shrunk exponentially. It had grown less colorful, less vivid. His apartment was so quiet, even with the AC humming in the background, and it was terrible. Asahi felt empty and overfull at the same time.

He was overcome with a sudden urge to prove he was here and alive, to recreate the sound that Nishinoya had taken with him when he had left. The closest things to him were the glasses that Noya had removed from his cupboard.

Asahi looked at them quietly for a moment, and then when the pressure in his chest grew too large to control or suppress, he grabbed a glass and, yelling something wordless, threw it as hard as he could against the wall.

Asahi wasn’t sure how he had expected to feel, but the shards of the wine glass lying around his kitchen like so many dead things definitely made him feel worse.

 

~•~

  

Asahi sat on his big, leather couch with his head in his hands as Suga rubbed his back gently. Daichi sat next to them wearing a concerned expression. 

“It’s not your fault,” Suga consoled softly, tracing circles through Asahi’s shirt. “I can’t believe he would just walk out on you like that.”

“You weren’t there,” Asahi muttered, shaking his head. “I was terrible. I yelled at him. I think I _scared_ him. I didn’t give him a chance to notice that something was wrong.”

“Well, he should have _known_ something was wrong when you started yelling,” Suga proclaimed. “You never yell. You’re our good, gentle Asahi, and you only get angry when you’re hurt.”

“Well, Noya’s only known Asahi for a little over a month,” Daichi mused. “So _he_ couldn’t know that.”

Asahi sat up straighter, shrugging Suga’s hand off of his back. “Daichi’s right,” he admitted mournfully. “First I tell him that I’ve been lying to him for a month, and then I yell at him. What’s he supposed to think?” He sighed and slumped back down into his hands. “I said everything wrong…” 

“He could have sat and listened to you for longer though,” Daichi said. “Don’t blame this _completely_ on yourself. You’re not the type to get into a fight without any provocation. He could’ve been less shitty to you.”

Asahi shook his head again. “He wasn’t being shitty. He was still trying to encourage me until the very end.” He looked up at Suga and Daichi, trying to keep the tears from his eyes and from his voice. “He made me feel so _good_ about myself,” Asahi admitted. “I felt _exciting_ around him. He _did_ make me feel confident in myself, and maybe I just didn’t recognize what I was feeling. Maybe I was scared to admit just how far gone I was. 

Suga made a strangled sort of noise and wrapped his arms around Asahi, squeezing him tightly. “Oh, Asahi…I’m so, so sorry.”

Daichi, behind Suga, only looked at Asahi intently, almost frustratedly. “If that’s how you feel about him, why are you letting him go?”

Suga leaned away from Asahi, shaking his head slightly to try to signal Daichi to _stop_ while hoping the motion would be imperceptible to the friend he was holding. “Daichi,” Suga began, too sweetly. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Daichi said, standing up. “That maybe Noya’s _right_ about you, Asahi. Why are you giving up on something that so clearly makes you happy?”

Asahi looked at him helplessly. “Because I fucked it up, Daichi. I _hurt_ him. Nishinoya doesn’t want me to bother him anymore.”

“How can you be so sure?” Daichi asked the slightest bit aggravated. “What was it that you said to him that was so entirely unforgivable? From what I can tell, Asahi, he cares about you. He wouldn’t have gotten so angry with you if he didn’t. He told you himself that he doesn’t want you to give up on wine. What makes you think that he wants you to give up on him?”

A little flame up hope lit up somewhere near Asahi’s heart, and for some reason, that hurt worse than hopelessness. “But…Nishinoya’s not the type to play games like that. If he wanted me to do something, he’d tell me to do it.”

Daichi put his hands on his hips, exasperated, as Suga put his hand on Asahi’s arm a little hesitantly. “Asahi…he may be right.”

“It sounds like Noya always gave you the benefit of the doubt,” Daichi explained. “Now give him the same! Do you really think that if he knew the whole situation he’d think you were a quitter? Why don’t you let him have the chance to decide if he _really_ wants you out of his life. Give him a chance to understand you!”

“If he knew everything…” Suga started, “if he knew about your dad, he’d definitely understand you better.”

Asahi stared at them, feeling the hope burn brighter but not quite ready to embrace it. “I’m not sure I want to trot what happened out into the open as an excuse.”

“Then don’t,” Daichi said. “But you’re kidding yourself if you say it has nothing to do with you not wanting to take the exam.”

Asahi frowned. Daichi was right, of course. “But it’s not going to be enough! He’s not just mad that I lied, he’s more mad that I quit! Even if I explain to him why, he’s still going to be disappointed in me. And if I tell him—if I decide to take the exam again, he’s going to think I’m doing it for him. I think he wants me to do this for my own sake.”

“Then _do_ it for your own sake,” Suga said simply. “And convince him.”

“ _How_?” The hope was alive in Asahi’s chest now, and it was stirring up feelings of desperation—Asahi saw the chance, but he had no idea how to take it. “You guys, what reason could he possibly have to believe me?”

Asahi looked to Daichi and was surprised to see that he was smiling. It wasn’t a smile of sympathy or pity or nervousness, but a small smile of confidence. “You know Noya better than we do,” Daichi said. “Take some time; make it right; but trust me when I say this,” his smile grew wide. “You _will_ think of something. You _will_ fix this. I’m _sure_ of it.”

 

~•~

 

Asahi had always had the feeling that bars in the daytime were completely different places than bars at nighttime.

Sometime around 9:00pm a bar transformed into something crowded, loud, and exciting, a place where anyone could show up and anything could happen. A room that, in any other setting, would be grungy, dirty, or plain became something secret and special just because of those normally negative qualities. People went to certain bars because they _weren’t_ glitzy or glamorous.

But before 9:00pm, and in midday especially, that bar was just a room. Where hours later it would be so crowded there would be people waiting to get in, in the day, it was quiet, containing none of the evening’s urgency.

When Asahi walked into Tanaka’s at 3:45 on a Tuesday, it felt no different than any other bar at midday. Like most bars in the afternoon, it felt hollow, especially so for Asahi because he remembered how he had felt the last time he was here, when it was thronged and alive.

There were very few people in the bar now—three businessmen ate lunches at tables as far apart from each other as possible, highlighting the sparseness of the lunch crowd. An old rock song from the early 2000s played softly over the speakers, and a cute, daydreaming waitress stood by a cash register at the bar, looking like she wished something would happen to spice up her day.

“Excuse me,” Asahi said, surprising the waitress out of her reverie.

“Welcome,” She said, looking at him quizzically. “Do you need a table? It’s seat yourself.”

“No, actually. I’m looking for the owner. Tanaka-san?”

“Sorry, sir,” The waitress said, shrugging. “Saeko-san isn’t in right now.”

“Is there another Tanaka that works here then?” Asahi asked, starting to feel distressed. He had never even _met_ a Saeko. What if he couldn’t find the only friend of Nishinoya’s that he _had_ met? “Not Saeko. Ryuu…?”

The waitress’s face lit up. “Ah, we don’t get very many people coming in here for Ryuunosuke! Just wait here. I’ll fetch him for you.”

She disappeared through a door into the back of the building, and Asahi took a moment to collect himself. Chances were that Noya had already told Tanaka about what had happened, which meant that Asahi was already in a hole. He needed to somehow convince Tanaka to help him get Noya back, and he had hoped that the solution would present itself when he got here, but he was still drawing a blank.

Tanaka came rushing through the door, excited, but when his eyes caught Asahi’s his features immediately morphed into something menacing—his chin raised high, eyes wide, and lip curled.

“What the hell are _you_ doing here, you bastard?” He growled, pushing the sleeve of his t-shirt up his bicep as he strode, intimidating, towards Asahi. Asahi resisted the urge to shrink into himself apologetically, and instead sat down at the bar.

“I need your help, Tanaka.”

Tanaka’s eyes popped even wider, and he smiled a tiny smile that did nothing to make his face appear more welcoming. “ _What_ did you just say to me, pretty boy?”

“I said that I need your help,” Asahi repeated desperately. “If I were you, I probably wouldn’t want to help me either—”

“You’re damn right,” Tanaka snarled, crossing his arms across his chest. Asahi noticed that, like Noya, Tanaka had a sleeve tattoo on his right arm—another complex-looking eastern dragon that was currently baring its vicious-looking fangs at him. “Forget helping you—give me one good reason why I shouldn’t beat your ass into the floor right now.”

“All I can tell you is the truth,” Asahi said, forcing himself not to back down while secretly hoping this wouldn’t come to a fist fight. “I messed up. I lied to Noya, and even though I never meant to hurt him, I hurt him anyway. I only wanted to get to know him, and then when I told him the truth, I didn’t handle it the way I should have.

“The truth is that I’m scared of getting close to people. But I want to be close to Noya. I _want_ to be around him and listen to him and hear what he has to say about literally everything and anything that goes through his head. I’ve never felt this much this fast for anyone before, and I was so terrified to mess it up that I messed it up!” Asahi ran his fingers through his hair despairingly. “I’m begging you, Tanaka. I need to fix this. I can’t leave it like this.”

Tanaka glared at him, but after a moment, he reached under the bar and grabbed a bottle of beer, uncapping it.

“Here,” Tanaka said gruffly, slamming the bottle down on the bar so hard that the liquid inside sloshed out onto the freshly washed countertop. “Drink up before I change my mind.”

Asahi took a swig immediately. Even though he didn’t particularly want a beer, he knew better than to say that to Tanaka right now. Tanaka grabbed a white dishcloth and wiped up the beer that he had spilled.

“Have you ever worked at a bar, Azumane?” Tanaka asked after he put the dishcloth away.

“I’ve worked at restaurants, but never at bars, no.”

“Well then you wouldn’t necessarily know how risky it is, to put everything you have into a bar,” Tanaka said. His tone was casual, but it sounded like an accusation. “Me and my sister, Saeko, we always wanted to own a place of our own like this, but having a bar in Tokyo can be a fucking disaster. You could be thriving one day and out of business the next.

“When we put the down payment on this place, every single one of our family members and friends felt the need to tell us it was a bad idea. Every single one of them said something like, ‘heeyyy Tanaka, are you sure that’s wise?’ in that sort of worried voice that only family and friends can have.”

Tanaka smiled briefly, looking towards the door where the word “Tanaka’s” was spelled backwards on the glass. “Not Noya though. He never even _looked_ worried for us. He said something like, ‘if you two own a bar, it’ll be the best bar in Tokyo! You won’t be able to get rid of me…I’ll be there every night!’ And guess what? He was there, _every single night_ during the first year we were open. He never doubted us, not for a second. He had our back from Day One.

Asahi felt his face grow tight with emotion. It sounded just like Noya. Tanaka looked like a guy prone to exaggeration, but he didn’t seem to be exaggerating about this at all.

“And the thing is, bastards have been beating Noya down his entire life.” At this, Tanaka shot Asahi a violent look, and Asahi couldn’t stop himself this time—he winced. “It’s none of _your_ business, but assholes have always told him what he can and can’t do. He always pushes through. He doesn’t give up on himself. Actually, he doesn’t give up on _anyone’s_ dreams, no matter how out of reach they seem.

“And then _you_ come along, and you have the same crazy dream he has—to be the first and best… _Wine Guy_ …in Japan, and he can’t believe it! He came in here, and he was so pumped…you turned all his doubts to dust. A Japanese man going to the Wine Guy exam and passing a part! Going back to pass the rest! And I was all, ‘Don’t _you_ want to be first?’ And just like Noya he goes, ‘Asahi-san is too cool to fail! We can be first together! We’ll have the best wine bar in Tokyo!’”

Asahi felt his lip trembling and forced the bottle of Kirin to his lips to hide it. Tanaka saw the emotion in his eyes and glared even harder. “Noya is the best guy I know, and he holds everyone to the same awesomely high standards he holds himself.” At this Tanaka shook his head. “So I guess it’s only natural that you might trip up…once.”

Asahi’s eyes widened. “Are you saying that you’ll help me?”

“I’ll help you this _once_ , because you’re here, and you care, and that takes guts, which makes you okay in my book. Hey! I might even forgive you for hurting my best friend! _If_ he forgives you too.”

Asahi let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “I really need his address, Tanaka,” He said. “I really need to talk to him, and I don’t want to ambush him at work.”

Tanaka gave him a skeptical look. “His address?”

“I promise, I won’t even go into his place if he says ‘no.’ I’ll leave and never come back if he tells me to. I just need a chance to explain myself and to make it up to him.” Tanaka stared at him for another moment, dubious. “ _Please_ ,” Asahi begged. “I’ve only got one real shot to fix this.”

Tanaka frowned, but turned around to grab a napkin and marker from the hostess stand, writing Nishinoya’s address on the paper in quick, untidy scrawl.

“He has Thursdays off from Cocoon, and _don’t_ make me regret this,” Tanaka said darkly, tossing the napkin into Asahi’s outstretched hand.

“You won’t,” Asahi said gratefully, clutching the napkin to his chest. “I promise.” He took one last swig of his beer, set down a few hundred yen on the countertop, and made for the door.

“Hey, Asahi,” Tanaka called as the bell on the door tinkled. Asahi turned back to look at Tanaka, and was surprised to see that he was giving him a self-possessed grin. “Good luck, man. I really don’t want to have to come find you and kick your ass.”

 

~•~

 

Nishinoya’s apartment building was in a grungier, younger, _cooler_ part of town than Asahi’s. The whole area was filled with people his and Noya’s age, and all around the apartment building were restaurants and bars and shops that Asahi could easily see Noya frequenting. Asahi thought that the neighborhood fit Noya perfectly—he wouldn’t care if his apartment wasn’t the nicest if he had plenty of unique places to visit and plenty of interesting people to meet.

The apartment building itself was small and old with an exterior of white brick—much more modest and unassuming than some of the more modern glass structures around it, though it looked bright and happy. By the door to the interior of the building was a buzzer listing all the names of the tenants. _Nishinoya Y._ was listed by the words _Apartment 4_.

Asahi rolled his shoulders, the weight of his backpack aggravating his neck. A small part of him felt like coming to see Noya uninvited was a mistake—what if Noya was totally offended? What if Noya told him to get lost and stay lost? But most of Asahi—the parts of Asahi that had grown stronger and bolder since he had known Nishinoya—knew that this was right. There was nothing Noya would appreciate more than a risky action. Nothing would make an impression like swimming instead of sinking in a do or die moment.

It took Asahi less time than he thought it would—only the time to take a deep breath and say a silent prayer—to ring the buzzer, which rang several times before it finally went through.

“Nishinoya,” came the response, fuzzy and distorted due to the poor quality of the apartment intercom.

“Noya, it’s Asahi. Please let me up. I have to talk to you.”

Noya said nothing back. The only reason Asahi didn’t ask if he was still there was because he could hear the low hum of background noise coming through the intercom. All at once, the buzzer rang again, and Asahi heard the door next to him unlock. He hurried through before he missed his chance.

The inside of the apartment building was as sunny and simple as the outside, and Asahi took a moment to look at the numbers of the first floor apartments (One and Two, two unmarked doors), before running up the stairs to the second floor.

Apartment 4 was in the middle of the hall, and when Asahi jogged up to it, he noticed that the words “Hottest on the Hall!” were carved into the wood to the right of the metal number. Asahi didn’t know if it was Noya’s doing, but even if it wasn’t, it was exactly the sort of thing he would have been delighted to find instead of doing the normal adult thing and worrying about his security deposit.

The warm feeling in his chest at the realization was all the motivation Asahi needed. He took a deep breath and knocked. After a beat, the door opened, and standing in the doorway was Nishinoya.

At least, Asahi _thought_ it was Noya. The Noya that Asahi knew had never looked quite as tired or disheveled as the person standing in front of him now. Even immediately after waking up—hair sticking in all directions and shirt rumpled—Noya had looked vibrant, vivid. But now, Asahi thought he looked exhausted. The hair on the top of his head, which was usually artfully combed off his face, hung limply past his brows. His posture, which usually projected so much energy, was slack and focused inward.

Only two things hearkened Asahi back to the Noya he knew and expected. The first was the shirt he was wearing—roomy and well worn, cursive white letters spelling out the words _Everything Happens for a Riesling_ ; the second was his eyes. Even when the rest of him looked tired and defeated, Noya’s eyes were still powerful in how much they conveyed. Right now, he looked cautious, but there was an undercurrent of curiosity running through his expression as well.

Hope burned painfully in Asahi’s chest, but he was reassured by it. He still had something to lose. Noya wasn’t completely through with him yet.

Asahi gave Noya an earnest look. “May I come in?”

Noya shrugged and opened the door wider, stepping aside. “Sure,” he said. His voice was more subdued than Asahi had ever heard it. “Don’t mind the mess. I would’ve cleaned up, but…”

Asahi looked up to shoot an apologetic look in Noya’s direction, but was surprised to see a small smile playing on his lips. Reassured, Asahi shrugged off his backpack and walked past Noya into his apartment. It _was_ messy, and cluttered, but the cause was most likely the small size of the space rather than the amount of mess. The door opened into an itty-bitty galley kitchen, counter-space consumed completely by an overlarge microwave and luxury wine cooler. There was only one room beyond the kitchen, and though it was small, it was bright and cheerful. A television sat on the chest of drawers at the far side of the room and was directed at Noya’s bed. A tiny table and two brightly painted chairs sat on the other side of the room. The mess was mostly because it looked like Noya’s hamper had exploded. Dirty clothes (and maybe some clean ones too) were scattered all over the wood floor. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be hanging on the tiny clothes rack next to the dresser were the black dress pants that Nishinoya was wearing the first time they met.

Noya gestured towards one of the chairs, and while Asahi sat down, Noya shoved some neatly folded sweatshirts off of his comforter and sat down himself. “Should I be worried about how you found this place?” Noya asked, not looking worried at all.

“Tanaka,” said Asahi simply by way of explanation. Nishinoya nodded, as if this was enough, and looked absently out the window beside the empty clothes rack.

When he turned back to Asahi, his arms were crossed, and he was wearing an empty look. “So, you said you had something to say?”

Asahi nodded. “Y-yes,” he began, but then shook his head. He couldn’t go into this hesitantly. He had to show Noya that he wasn’t scared anymore. He had live up to what Noya saw in him. “Yes,” he started again. “I have to apologize to you. I never meant to lie to you, Noya, but I did. I lied, and I lied because it was easier than telling the truth. That was selfish, and you didn’t deserve it. And to make it worse, I yelled at you; I said things I didn’t mean just to hurt you.” Asahi trailed off, wanting to look at his hands but forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Noya. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

Noya nodded. “Apology accepted. I said some pretty fucked up things too. I get it.”

Asahi blinked. Unlike the last conversation they’d had, this one was going about as well as he could possibly expect. He didn’t feel like everything was fixed yet, but he was off to a good start.

“As for why I didn’t want to take the exam,” Asahi paused as he saw Noya bite his lip and look, distressed, at the floor. He had definitely been right—this was the part Noya was _really_ upset about. “There are some things that you don’t know, and I’d like to tell you about them, if you’ll listen. If you hear me out and you still can’t understand me, then you can tell me to leave and I won’t bother you again, but I just…” Asahi stopped abruptly, emotion filling him so much he didn’t trust himself to speak.  Noya was peering at him intently, and Asahi took a steadying breath and continued. “I don’t want to leave things the way they are because I was too afraid to trust you. I want to trust you with this. So…so just give me a chance. Not to make excuses but to…to explain.”

Noya looked worried now, his arms were uncrossed, his hands were folded in his lap, and he was chewing on his lip nervously.

Asahi took another deep breath, made a promise to himself to hold nothing back, and began.

“I don’t have a really good relationship with my family. When I was a kid, we were all really close, and if there were problems, I was too young to notice them. But as I got older we grew further apart, especially my mother and I. I think I told you once that I thought my dad was okay with me being gay. My mother wasn’t. I don’t think I was ever the son she wanted. I’ve always been quiet and meek—it’s who I am—but she saw me as weak. She wanted me to speak out more, be more assertive, be a lawyer or politician or businessman, but it was never what I wanted. Thinking back, she’s the one who called me a coward—when I was teased or bullied as a kid, she wanted me to stand up for myself, fight back, but I was more content to just smooth the waters and try not to let it bother me.

“The first time I really stood up to her was when I finally told her about myself. She told me it was fine, but that she expected me not to act on it, and when I told her that I already had, she lost it. We pretty much stopped speaking, and when I left to go to University, we didn’t talk much. Which was fine. I met Daichi and Suga and I had other people, and _they_ became my family. The only hard part was my dad. I think he felt caught in the middle, and because my mom wasn’t talking to me, he didn’t feel like he could either.

“But then I started getting into wine. I was good at it, and it was something fun to learn after I graduated. And one day, I called my dad and told him about it, since all my memories of wine from my childhood stemmed from him. He was so thrilled, Noya. He hadn’t realized that you could _take_ classes, that there was an actual curriculum, that there were actually people who would teach him what they knew. He started researching it too, taking classes even though he was getting on in years and really far behind me, and it brought us closer together. It was something we could share.

“Suddenly wine wasn’t something that I did for myself anymore--it was something that brought my family back together. When I told my mom what I could do as a certified Master Sommelier, she was impressed. It’s a sort of glamorous job, and, to her, I was finally living up to her expectations. It felt like I had brought my family back to the way we were when I was younger, and it was the best feeling in the world. And I thought… it made me believe that if I could pass the exam and get a job at one of the nicer restaurants in Tokyo—or better yet, open up my _own_ place—everything would stay good between the three of us. It became _everything_ to me, to bring things back to the way they were when we all loved each other. I think it was everything to my father too.”

Asahi took another deep breath to steel himself. Nishinoya was looking at him intently, carefully, concernedly, as if afraid of what was coming.

“And then I failed. I failed my tasting exam. I must have gotten one of the worst scores that anyone has ever gotten on it because I saw everything that was riding on it, my family’s _togetherness_ …and I just…fell apart! The pressure was too much! And—and I couldn’t talk to either of them…they knew when I had taken the exam and when I would get the results and they called me and called me, but I didn’t want to talk to them. I didn’t want to hear their pity or their disappointment, because I already had enough of that for myself. I was so, so bitter. Here I had this chance to make them proud of me, and not only did I not succeed, I failed in the worst possible way…I didn’t even give it my best! I just…crumpled! I felt like such a _loser_!

“A-and—And then…” Asahi felt the emotion welling up in his chest, and hot tears welled up in his eyes. He blinked them away, frustrated. He had _promised_ to get this all out, to make Noya understand where he was coming from. Noya for his part, had leaned forward and was staring at him, his lips parted, expression trepidatious.

“I had been back in Japan for three days when my mom started calling me again. After my exam, the calls had mostly been from my dad, but then it was my mom calling me. I didn’t want to answer. I felt like I knew what she was going to tell me, but I had no idea…I—” At this, Noya rushed over to him as Asahi rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the tears that were leaking out of them.

“Asahi-san…” Noya murmured, shocked and worried, grabbing his arm hesitantly.

“No, no—it’s okay. I just—” Asahi blinked the tears out of his eyes and realized that he was shaking with the effort it took not to cry for real. Noya’s touch steadied him just a little bit, so he continued. “My mom wasn’t calling me to yell at me. She called me to tell my that my dad had a heart attack.” Noya took a sharp intake of breath as Asahi sighed out shakily. “I ignored her calls _five times_ as my dad was being rushed to the hospital, and when I finally answered and I finally got to the hospital, my dad was already in surgery and—and I never got to say goodbye because I didn’t want to talk about how I had failed!”

Noya squeezed Asahi’s hand as tightly as he could. “Asahi…” he said miserably. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me…”

“Because I couldn’t talk about it with _anyone_!” Asahi said, and he felt heartbroken. “Suga and Daichi only knew because they were there for me already. But what was I supposed to tell people? My dad died knowing that I failed the only thing we could share, knowing that I was too cowardly to face him with that failure, and that—I couldn’t—I didn’t…it _ruined_ it for me Noya. I didn’t want to look at anything that had anything to do with wine because it reminded me of everything good about my father and all the guilt I felt because of him.”

“ _Asahi_ ,” Noya said, squeezing Asahi’s hand even tighter. “Asahi-san, making you do the taste test…everything I told you—I never would have said if I had known—”

“I know you wouldn’t have, but the thing is Noya, you were _right_. I didn’t think wine could make me happy because there’s just no hope for reuniting my family, but I forgot why I liked it in the first place—because I’m good at it, because it makes me happy, because it reminds me of the good times I had with my family and with my father and those memories still matter. I can’t throw those away just like I can’t throw my happiness away. _You_ showed me that, Noya. Suga and Daichi did to, forcing me out of my house, taking me to the wine bar again because they’ve always know what’s best for me, but you _really_ reminded me of everything I like about wine. Everything I like about _myself_. I feel so strong and important around you, and when we’re talking about the exam and everything we dreamed and planned…how could I have forgotten why I did this in the first place? It wasn’t about my family…it was because of _my_ dreams, _my_ aspirations.

“Which is why I’m going to take the exam again. You were right to call me out, Noya…I was afraid of taking risks, but I shouldn’t have been.”

Noya looked teary but also a little bit alarmed. “Asahi-san, I totally get it. I’m not giving up on you, but if you need to take some time—take it next year—”

“No. I registered for it yesterday, and I’ll take it with you.” Asahi announced. “Because if you believe in me like I believe in you, then _neither_ of us can be beat by this horrible fucking exam. What’s there to be scared of?”

Noya smiled a watery, trembling smile and then launched himself at Asahi, arms wrapping around Asahi’s neck, their lips meeting way too hard and causing their teeth to clack and noses to bump and Asahi to see stars, but it was everything he could have wanted, and he couldn’t help it—he had to release Noya and pull back to laugh shakily, a little scared to feel this happy but committed to feeling it anyway.

“You really forgive me?” Asahi asked. “Already?”

“Asahi-san, I never _wanted_ to be mad at you,” Nishinoya admitted. “I just…it was hard for me to see you giving up. It made me want to give up too, and I don’t want to give up! But if you’re willing to try the exam again, after all you’ve been through, how could I not try _you_ again?”

“I honestly thought I’d have to do a lot more to get you to kiss me again,” Asahi said bashfully, scratching the hair at the base of his neck.

Just to emphasize that he was indeed kissing him again, Noya kissed him once more on the crown of his head. “What did you have planned?”

Asahi glanced back to the entrance to the apartment and found his backpack sitting next to the coat rack by the door. “Check in there.”

Noya scampered to the backpack and unzipped the large back compartment. Then he looked up at Asahi in confusion. “You were going to give me back my wine?” He asked, removing the bottles from the sack and glancing skeptically at the white papery residue where the labels had been removed.

“Ah, not exactly, no…” Asahi said as Noya lugged the bottles over to where he was sitting. “I thought I was going to have to prove to you how serious I was about the test, so… I thought…”

“So you were going to do a tasting?” Noya asked, incredulous. “Have you even done one since your exam?”

“No, so I…I was kind of scared to do it, but I thought, maybe, if you saw me do an actual tasting, you might believe that I _do_ want this for myself,” Asahi said. “And I wasn’t just saying something meaningless to get back with you.”

“Well, you can still prove it to me!” Noya said excitedly, running into his kitchen to grab six wine glasses. “I still haven’t seen you taste, Asahi-san. And since you’re all pumped up to do it, you should!”

Asahi helped Noya set the glasses up on the apartment’s pale wood floor, since there wasn’t enough room on the tiny kitchen table to be sure they wouldn’t get knocked over. As Noya filled each of the six glasses with a different wine, Asahi couldn’t help but think of where he was the last time he saw six wine glasses like this—three whites on the left, three reds on the right.

In that moment they had seemed like everything, the center point on which his whole universe revolved. And yes, he had invested a lot of time and effort in this, and yes, passing the exam was important to him, but last time he hadn’t seen Suga and Daichi, people who would love him no matter what, and he hadn’t had Nishinoya, someone who would never give up on him or let him give up on himself. Even if he failed the exam for a second time, or a third, Asahi truly believed that Noya would believe in his ability to pass, to succeed, to break through what was holding him back.

At the end of the day, a test was a test, and wine was just fermented grape juice. And if he had Suga and Daichi, if he had Noya, he could always pick himself back up and try again. Because he _wasn’t_ a coward, and he never had been. He was going to stop making excuses for why he didn’t go after what he wanted. Why shouldn’t he do what he wanted? Why shouldn’t he have what made him happy?

“Time starts when you touch the first glass,” Noya said, giving him a grin. “Ready?”

Discovering the wine, the vintage, the vineyard…that was a puzzle, and it was a puzzle that Asahi knew he might not be able to solve. But it wasn’t scary or embarrassing, even with Noya sitting _right there_ knowing what he was getting right or wrong. All Noya wanted from him was that he try. And Asahi could definitely do that—Asahi could try.

“You know what?” Asahi asked, reaching for the first glass of white without a second thought. “I'm ready. I am.”

 

~•~

  

“Well, Azumane,” the proctor said as soon as Asahi sat down in the chair in the small conference room. His heart was racing even though he felt pretty confident. It wasn’t known as one of the hardest exams in the world for no reason after all. Asahi had felt good about his performance, but it was entirely possible that he had failed. “You may have had the greatest improvement I’ve ever seen in an examinee.”

Asahi smiled modestly. “Well, I had a lot to improve on.”

“You did, but it wasn’t just your wine knowledge. You’re like an entirely different person this year!”

Asahi thought fondly of Nishinoya who was in the room two doors down, getting his results at the same time. How could he not have become a different person after everything that had happened? “I feel similarly, sir.”

“That’s why I’m so happy to tell you, Azumane—” and Asahi tried to hide his emotion, keep his tears in his eyes where they belonged, but he couldn’t help the shocked smile that formed itself on his face—“that you’ve passed. Welcome, Azumane, to the Court of Master Sommeliers!” The Proctor took the little red pin out of his pocket—the insignia of master sommeliers everywhere—and stood so he could pin it on Asahi’s suit jacket.

“Th-thank you,” Asahi stuttered. “I don’t know how to say how happy I am… I—”

“That’s all you have to say,” the proctor said proudly. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier to give someone their results. Seriously, you’re going to be amazing.”

The two of them walked out of the room—the proctor had to deliver more results, so there was no time to celebrate, but Asahi didn’t want to talk to the proctor anymore. There was only one person he wanted to share this news with right now, and the person was already sprinting down the carpeted hallway of the hotel, racing to him, a huge dazed grin on his face.

“Asahi!” Nishinoya cried once he’d reached him, chest heaving in equal parts exertion and excitement. “How’d you do?!”

Asahi just raised his eyebrows and smiled—his words were failing him right now, but Noya got what he meant, thrusting his fist in the air, victorious. Asahi couldn’t help but exhale a gusty laugh. Noya looked elated, but not surprised. He had believed in him from the very beginning after all.

“Forget me,” Asahi said, grasping Noya around the biceps. “What about _you_? How did you do?”

Noya just smiled and nodded and laughed too. “Me too, Asahi,” he said, unable to stop smiling from ear to ear. “Me too.” 

 

 

Later on, Asahi and Noya would go to the reception that was in celebration of _them_ and the other three men and women who had become Master Sommeliers. Asahi couldn’t have been prouder of Noya. They had gone through this whole damned process together, and the two of them had actually passed. They smiled blissfully and disbelieving—they had spent _years_ of their lives studying wine after all. Asahi thought that this must be what reaching the top of Everest felt like; it was pointless to think of what was higher, or better—the only thing they could do was enjoy the view.

At the reception, they served wine like they always did.  When the waiter handed him and Noya a little globe of red, they grinned at each other and clinked them together.

He knew what wine this was: a 2012 Syrah made from grapes from Côte Rotie. When Asahi sipped it, it tasted just like it was supposed to—like boysenberries and cherries and blueberry liquor with hints of incense and smoke. It was bold and heady and powerful, a perfect compliment to how Asahi was feeling in the moment.

“What do want to do when we get back to Tokyo?” He asked Noya, unable to hold back the question. He wasn’t asking because he was worried or concerned, but because he was _excited_. There was so much they _could_ do now.

Noya seemed to sense this and grinned at him, his beautiful, intoxicating eyes sparkling with the possibility of it all. “I don’t know!” He said, and it was brilliant, not knowing what was next but being happy about it. “We’ll party, we’ll celebrate, and maybe we’ll open a restaurant!”

Asahi considered this, running through locations, names, vintages that he would want to have in stock. “Not a wine bar?” He asked Noya after a moment, having always believed that was what Noya wanted.

“A wine bar, a restaurant, a tasting room, none of them, _all_ of them… I think it will work itself out as long as we do it together,” Noya said earnestly. He looked down at the deep purple glass of wine in his hand. “Here’s to _us_ , Asahi,” he said, raising the glass again and smiling playfully. “Qué Syrah Syrah!”

**Author's Note:**

> If you've made it this far, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I had so much fun writing this, and it makes me so, so happy that anyone would be willing to read my writing.
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, you could leave a comment (they're my life's blood) or you could leave some kudos so that other people can find this too. Also, feel free to talk to me about wine/yell at me about Asanoya by messaging me at my tumblr, which is batbrood.tumblr.com
> 
> GLOSSARY  
> Asahi/Asahi Stout - believe it or not, “Asahi” is not just the name of our protagonist, but it’s also the number one producer of Japanese beer. Asahi Stout, like most stouts is a dark, strong beer. When drinking stouts, many people taste chocolate or coffee notes. 
> 
> Barolo - grown with Nebbiolo grapes, is notable for having tons of tannins, which chemically dry the mouth and produce a bitter taste. Barolo is one of those wines that can take years to reach its potential—a decade is not overmuch to expect when aging it. A fun fact about Barolo is that their growing code stipulates that the vines must be planted on a hill!
> 
> Chardonnay (Chard) - a green-skinned grape from Burgundy, France, it is now one of the most commonly planted grapes in the world. Chard can be aged in either oak or steel, and depending on where it's grown, it can range from crisp to fruity to buttery. Oak-y, boozy Chard also got way too popular in the United States in the 1980s.
> 
> Chianti - a blended wine from the Chianti region of Italy. Chianti typically has a nice, smooth floral/spice flavor and goes well with almost anything, but I like it with Red Sauce Italian dishes!
> 
> Gewürztraminer – a variety of white wine, gewürztraminer is relatively sweet and is commonly said to smell like lychees. 
> 
> Kirin/Kirin Ichiban – Kirin is the number two producer of Japanese beer. Go Asahi! Kirin Ichiban has, inexplicably, replaced Heineken as my grandfather’s favorite beer. Luckily for him, Kirin Ichiban is sold all over the world, including where we live in the United States.
> 
> Lambrusco - the name of an Italian grape and the wine it makes, it's designed to be drunk "frizzante." It was really popular in the 80s, when it was the number one imported wine to the US. Wines go through trends just like everything else, and though it's "out of style" now, it's still delicious to drink!
> 
> Merlot - a good wine that gets a bad rap because of the wine-nerd movie _Sideways_ , in which the main character HATES Merlot. His feelings on it aside, it is the world’s third most grown grape, and it is often blended with other grapes to soften their tannins—in fact, it's a main grape in many wine blends from Bordeaux. 
> 
> Pinot Noir - notoriously difficult to grow but easy to drink, Pinot has relatively light tannins for a red wine and a bold, fruity flavor. The palate and characteristics of Pinot Noir can vary drastically, making it difficult to identify by tasting, but people really like Pinot, and Master Sommeliers are no exception. MS Madeline Triffon (the first woman to pass the test) calls it "sex in a glass."
> 
> Riesling – a white wine variety from Rhine, Germany. Riesling is almost never blended with any other grapes, and it is almost never oaked. Riesling is usually fruity in flavor ranging from orchard fruits like apples and pears to citrus fruits like grapefruit. 
> 
> Sangiovese - a red wine grape from Italy and THE main ingredient in Chianti blends.
> 
> Sauvignon Blanc - a green-skinned grape from Bordeaux, France, and also the name of a delicious, refreshingly crisp white wine. The flavor of the wine changes drastically depending on where it's grown. I personally love Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, which typically have a bright citrus flavor.
> 
> Sherry - a fortified wine, meaning a distilled spirit is added after the fermentation process to wine to make it more alcoholic (and alter its taste). The sherry that I’ve had tasted like figs, but it can also taste like almonds or melons. If any of you are literary buffs, you may recognize sherry from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.” 
> 
> Shiraz/Syrah – Shiraz and Syrah are the same exact thing, it’s just that in Australia, people call it Shiraz, and everywhere else people call it Syrah. You never know what you’re going to get when you drink one of these wines—the tastes have a huge range and the amount of tannins vary greatly. I’ve heard this wine described as “undependable” because it isn’t consistently good. You could conceivably go into a store and buy a really funky bottle of Syrah. I prefer to think of them as “unpredictable” because when Syrah is right, it can be incredible. 
> 
> Tempranillo–a red wine grape native to Spain, Tempranillo makes big-bodied wines, but it is not as aromatic (smelly) as other red wine grapes. As a result, it is usually used in blends of grapes, but when aged in oak it can easily take on the taste of the barrel, giving it a unique flavor.


End file.
